Posted on 12/03/2005 1:27:32 PM PST by wagglebee
FRIDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Legalizing doctor-assisted death wouldn't undermine patients' trust in their physicians, a new study finds.
"Overall, three times as many people disagree as agree that legalizing physician-assisted death would cause them to trust their personal doctors less," researcher Mark Hall, a professor of public health sciences and professor of law at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a prepared statement.
He and his colleagues conducted a telephone survey of 1,117 American adults, who were asked to use a five-point scale to rate their agreement or disagreement with this statement: "Assume for the purpose of this question that euthanasia were legal. If doctors were allowed to help patients die, you would trust your doctor less."
The study found that 58 percent disagreed with the statement and 20 percent said legalizing euthanasia would reduce their trust in their personal physician. Adults aged 65 and older and blacks were more likely than other groups to say that legalized euthanasia would reduce their trust in doctors.
"Despite the widespread concern that legalizing physician-assisted death would seriously threaten or undermine trust in physicians, the weight of evidence in the United States is to the contrary, although views vary significantly," Hall said.
The study appears in the current issue of Medical Ethics.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has information about end-of-life care (www.cancer.gov target=_ new).
-- Robert Preidt
SOURCE: Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, news release, Dec. 2, 2005
Ping.
Not me.
Not me.
I'm really not certain what this poll means, nor what they are trying to say it means. People trust their own doctors? So? I don't see what that has to do with the assisted suicide debate.
susie
You are making quite a leap from an assisted suicide to an involuntary euthanasia. As long as the medical payments system does not provide an incentive [and there are no other incentives, like, say, a physician standing to inherit], such a leap is unwarranted.
Most Would Trust Doctors if Euthanasia Legalized
------Who are "most"? I wasn't asked. They must of asked the ones in a coma or severely brain damaged patients.
The agenda of the eugenics movement has always been to force its beliefs on society in incremental steps.
http://www.eugenics-watch.com/
Especially if the other patient was prepared to pay for the organ.
I could live with it.
What do you mean?
This is a slippery slope, look at the German doctors who accepted the ‘medicalization of death’ in the 1920’s, they justified physician-assisted death on the grounds of compassion for the hard cases, with iron-clad promises that the ‘right to die’ would remain strictly voluntary. They were wrong it, help lead to Adolph Hitler’s euthenasia programs. We must not forget how dangerous it is to accept the idea that some people would be better off if their doctor killed them.
I would trust my doctor just as much if they legalized euthanasia as I do now. That is to say I wouldn't trust them now to decide if I should live or die, and I wouldn't if they were given that power.
Moral absolutes ping.
As many times as I have been MISDIAGNOSED in the past 30 years, I would NEVER trust a DOCTOR!
Kevorkian...need we say more?
What I mean is that IMHO Margaret Sanger made a lot of valid points. BTW, I think that you made an error regarding forced beliefs, and have sent you a FR mail on it.
I could live with it too. Provided there were some safeguards such as the requirement for a living will, That two blood relatives & spouse agree, that two Dr.'s (or a committee of Dr.'s)agree on the terminal nature and suffering. If the patient is able to make rational decesion agrees.
"As long as the medical payments system does not provide an incentive..."
"Scarceness of resources" will be the incentive, ask the Dutch how this is working out for them, many of the old are terrified to go to the Hospital, as they well know they may never come out.
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