Should Nurses help Doctors in Physician assisted suicide (euthanasia)

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  1. Do you Believe that Nurses should help with Euthanasia

    • 23
      Yes, I believe it is right to be apart of Physician assisted suicide
    • 15
      No, I believe its wrong to be apart of Physician assisted suicide.

38 members have participated

I believe that nurses have a legal responsibility and a moral obligation to keep patients alive not to help them commit suicide.

What do you think about euthanasia and are you for it or against it.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

Who does the OP say:

Physician assisted suicide (euthanasia)

As if they are the same thing when they are in fact vastly different?

Suicide, reguiardless of who helps, is a patient decision. Euthanasia would be some other person deciding to end the patient's life.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Keep them alive even if there's no chance of recovery? Uncontrollable pain? Why do you feel it is your right or responsibility to tell someone how they need to live their last days?

Nurses, rarely, if ever, take an active role in ending a life. My job is to provide comfort, alleviate pain and suffering, to make decisions that only they can make.

In 35 years....I have removed several people from life support and participated in terminal weans.
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Specializes in critical care.
In 35 years....I have removed several people from life support and participated in terminal weans.

My husband's grandmother spent a few days on pressors and sedatives while her respirator kept her breathing. It was her nurse who initiated and titrated her morphine drip based on vitals indicating potential pain. It was her nurse who turned off the sedation and pressors. It was her nurse who turned off her respirator. The facility was kind enough to let the family decide it was time, and when we did, it was the nurse who filled the standing orders to ultimately "let her go".

Perhaps an advanced practitioner of some type needs to order these things, but I think it probably is rare that they are the ones carrying those orders out. I mean, I suppose their are times when they try to be or want to be, in support of the family, but it is probably not the norm to have them carrying out the d/c orders and starting the morphine.

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Specializes in critical care.
In 35 years....I have removed several people from life support and participated in terminal weans.

On another note, Esme, all I have seen of your generous nature, always giving of self here, I imagine you were an amazing support in this role for your families and patients. I bet they were very grateful to have you be there in that time for them.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Nurses, rarely, if ever, take an active role in ending a life. My job is to provide comfort, alleviate pain and suffering, to make decisions that only they can make.

In 35 years....I have removed several people from life support and participated in terminal weans.

But is that truly an active role in ending life or merely allowing nature to take its course?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
But is that truly an active role in ending life or merely allowing nature to take its course?
When you care for a patient, give meds, make decisions, and administer care.... aren't you taking an active role in patient care?

Depends on how.... and who looks at it.

For me I have had no ethical issues. While removing a brain dead child from the vent the first time was the HARDEST thing I had ever done (until that point) it was the right thing to do. Letting nature take it's course...yes. But I turned the vent off. I removed her from life support after asystole and disconnected her lines and placed her in her mothers arms for the first time in weeks. Active participation? Uhmmmm.... Yes...the MD was in his office. She was legally deceased. I saw the CBF myself. I have NEVER forgotten her...

I was very uncomfortable with a terminal wean of a young woman who had ALS wanted to die and have life support removed. While she could not move she was alert as you and I. It was the right thing to do and my conscious is clear...but was this an active role? Hummm...yes. I think it was. Increasing morphine, decreasing the vent....Assisted SI? I can't give that answer.

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.
But is that truly an active role in ending life or merely allowing nature to take its course?

That was the point I was making in responding to the OP. I was not referring to being actively involved in a persons treatment, but as nurses not actively inducing death

Weaning someone down is removing an ultimately futile treatment. That is not assisting suicide, that is not euthanasia. Maybe the person will die in a minute, a week, a month. You are allowing a medical outcome to progress naturally. The nurse or doctor has become a passive participant.

You may increase morphine to ease pain and discomfort, knowing that it will probably cause death; that is not suicide or euthanasia from an ethical or legal perspective.

Actively ending the patients life through suicide or euthanasia would include hanging a cocktail specifically designed only to end life...cranking up the morphine, even though the patient was in no discomfort, until after they stopped breathing...bringing in a hand full of pills intended to create a fatal arrhythmia.

End of life issues are filled with nuance & will continue to promote ethical debate. But to me, "active" boils down to: are you doing something that is intended to cause death, or are you not doing something that will allow the person to die a natural death?

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Specializes in Emergency, ICU.

When I walked in she had mottled skin, was very stiff, and even the slightest touch was very painful to her and she would moan. She had cheyne stokes breathing pattern (confirmed by nurse), and overall appeared to be in agony. They were "treating her" and comforting her family. I'm sure there are interventions that could have been done to keep this patient alive, but at that moment I learned that just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done. I don't have a lot of experience, but I definitely feel that experience was very humbling and am glad to have been there.

I'm very glad you had a chance to see death. I am also very sad to see your description of this resident in agony! Where was the morphine? She should not have suffered like this.

OP: as has been stated, you will get some real live experiences once you're a nurse and your perspective will change. If a patient has made an informed decision to end their life due to illness that is not treatable, I am fine with it.

(Mental illness is going to be the big debate in this subject, in my opinion.)

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

End of life issues are filled with nuance & will continue to promote ethical debate. But to me, "active" boils down to: are you doing something that is intended to cause death, or are you not doing something that will allow the person to die a natural death?

Too late to edit, but above should read:

End of life issues are filled with nuance & will continue to promote ethical debate. But to me, "active" boils down to: are you doing something that is intended to cause death, or are you not doing something in order to allow the person to die a natural death?

Thats a little clearer, I think.

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I may have agreed somewhat to what the OP stated, or maybe to what he thought he was saying, while in nursing school.

Now , after working in the ICU I see what "no matter what the costs" looks like.

When you see an 80 something pt beg you not to code them again, and then have to because they are deemed incompetent and have no family, you understand the ugly side.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I may have agreed somewhat to what the OP stated, or maybe to what he thought he was saying, while in nursing school.

Now , after working in the ICU I see what "no matter what the costs" looks like.

When you see an 80 something pt beg you not to code them again, and then have to because they are deemed incompetent and have no family, you understand the ugly side.

I have complied with patient wishes and refused to code them, despite their full code status, on several occasions. The first time I fully expected to be fired. Nobody ever mentioned a word about it to me. That made me braver and have refused several more times after that. On some occasions the code proceeded without me, in others my refusal put a stop to eveything.

I don't know what my legal risk is when following patient wishes and not coding them is. However I know the risk I take of having to face myself in the mirror every day. I very much hope it nevere costs me my job or license. If it does, well there are other things I can do for a living...........

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Specializes in Emergency.
I believe that we have a responsibility to keep individuals alive no matter what the costs. Thats what we do, help keep others alive not help them kill themselves.

Old post, I know. But, so, so wrong. This is not patient centered.

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