Institute for Continuing Education

Practitioner-Assisted Suicide: The Dilemma

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Define terms used in discussions about assisted suicide.
• Identify the degrees of intent and voluntariness present in assisting patients to kill themselves.
• Recognize the change in attitude toward patient death.
• Analyze how changes in law come from changes in attitude.
• Identify the current state of law of assisted suicide in several jurisdictions.
• Analyze the practitioner¹s role in assisting patients to kill themselves.

Course Information

In this course we define assisted suicide, euthanasia, and related terms. We show the legal degree of intent necessary for those different acts. We present some of the history of self-killing. We clarify the relationship of morals to law, and give the specifics of the changes in many jurisdictions, in the law of causing death.

We discuss the change in the way illness care is paid for, as one reason for changes in attitude toward patient death. We clarify how the public¹s attitude that they "wouldn¹t want to live like that" is projected onto dying people. We help you examine your professional and personal values about causing death in patients. Last, we offer some practical suggestions about coping with the issue, regardless of what you decide is the right thing to do.