Does the case for terminal sedation actually weaken the case against physician-assisted suicide?

Terminal sedation, more clinically referred to as "palliative sedation," is a legally sanctioned alternative to physician-assisted suicide, a last resort in palliative treatment. It involves inducing and maintaining unconsciousness in a terminally ill patient until the patient dies, and is often accompanied by withholding or withdrawing medical feeding and hydration.

For example, if, in my advanced cancer, I experience intolerable pain, delirium, dyspnea or distress, to alleviate these unmanageable symptoms I let my physician sedate me into unconsciousness until I die. Sort of like undergoing anesthesia before surgery, without waking up.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

	Click the icon to play the podcast

Dr. Robert Klitzman is the author of the recently released “Am I My Genes: Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing”, published by Oxford University Press. He is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University. Dr. Klitzman co-founded and for five years co-directed the Columbia University Center for Bioethics, and is the Director of the Ethics and Policy Core of the HIV Center.

In our wide-ranging interview, Dr. Klitzman discusses

• The impact of genetic testing on patients with Huntington’s disease, breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
• The implications of recent genetic breakthroughs for these people and their families
• Ethical issues involved in genetic testing, including disclosing results to family and friends, disclosing results to employers and insurers, whether to have children, whether to screen embryos, and privacy concerns
• How to confront fatalism, anxiety, and despair
• How to prepare, ethically and personally, for the likelihood of readily available genetic testing in the near future

Dr. Klitzman also discusses his previous book, When Doctors Become Patients, published by Oxford University Press.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Does a person have a disease or disorder? Or is the person unwell with an illness? Are the concepts of disease and illness distinct? If we have been lulled to sleep by 100 years of Cartesian diktats from the medical establishment, we may miss the point. But if our thinking is super-sharp, we may be able to detect a critical difference.

A prominent legacy of Cartesian dualism, the mind/body problem, causes a split between the “I” that I know myself to be and the physical body that the “I” inhabits. “I” am a passenger in my body. My body carries “me” around, but we are two separate entities. Thus, my body is something separate from “me” and things can happen to it, e.g., my body can become diseased.

The practice of modern medicine is based on this seemingly real separation. But if that’s all there is, much is being missed. Investigation of the illness vs. disease antinomy offers a profound opportunity for improved medical care of people as patients.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Medicine as treatment or medicine as healing? Despite facile responses, these two constructions are distinct. It is possible that the failure to distinguish between the the modalities of treatment and healing is responsible for much of the current health care mess. Such failure may also account in large part for the abject failure of medicine to provide meaningful solutions to the epidemics of type II diabetes and overweight/obesity. Similarly, when a person ill with cancer or a person ill with a cardiovascular disorder encounters the health care system, the orientation of his physicians to treatment or healing will have a significant impact on the person’s long-term health and well-being.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

We (in America) live in a capitalist society. That is a given. We also live in a democratic society. The Declaration of Independence states that all men [humans] are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is not clear that any of these specific rights can be fulfilled when access to a minimum standard of health care is denied, obstructed, or otherwise not available. In the case when health care is available, that care needs to be delivered stripped of any considerations other than those related to providing assistance for that patient.

But in America many ancillary considerations intervene. Care of a patient is confounded by care for special interests, often involving kickbacks (whether in the form of travel expenses, gifts, complimentary lunches and dinners, or even cash payments) rendered by obsequious agents of big pharma or medical device corporations. Worse, on a broader scale, the recent phenomenon of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) blithely granting biomedical patents to any and all comers has seriously harmed medical practice and the health of Americans in need.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

Do we really need more drugs? We can gain some insight into this question by posing a qualifying question: “How’s it working out so far?” The answer is rather obvious: “Not all that well.” Despite spending $2.5 trillion in 2009 on health care, representing almost 18% of our gross domestic product, the life expectancy of Americans ranks #36 worldwide. Numerous developing nations enjoy longer lifespans than we do. (Costa Rica, for example, ranks #30.) On the other end of the spectrum, the New York Times recently reported that the U.S. rate of premature births is comparable to that of developing nations. Regarding this impactful public health issue with long-term consequences for society, the U.S. does worse than any Western European country. The U.S. premature birth rate of 12% is comparable with that in Kenya, and Honduras. In other words, on this measure the overweening technological superiority of our notoriously costly health care system fares no better than that of countries with per capita incomes of $2 a day.

With respect to chronic disease, it is not unreasonable to assert that medical treatment has obtained equivocal results in the population. Statins are a drug class that has demonstrated proven benefit. For persons who have risk factors for atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, statin use effectively reduces the risk of death due to cardiovascular disease, including stroke. Benefits of statin use increases over time. But drug companies want to extend the statin hegemony to include persons at low cardiovascular risk. In other words, global pharmaceutical corporations want physicians to prescribe statins for prevention in otherwise healthy persons.

The year is 2029. After discussing schedules, I've picked early afternoon April 28 as my day. That works for most of us. My wife will have returned from her conference. My sisters can fly in after their dance recital. My brother rescheduled his interviews.

Cousins can drive in from the coast. Some nieces and nephews can't make it, but that's all right. They're busy. Dr. Landis assured us it would be brief. I'll just take the pill the good doc gives me and fall quickly asleep, peacefully, forever. No pain. I'm doing what's right. It is better for all of us.

As we face dying's three dreads — pain, abandonment, helplessness — what is the practical allure of physician-assisted suicide?

Something remarkable is happening in the world of medicine (the field is often considered a monolithic special interest group). On April 4, 2012, nine medical specialty societies released lists of the "Top Five" services that are the most expensive and "have been shown not to provide any meaningful benefit to at least some major categories of patients". These nine lists are the first results of the "Choosing Wisely" campaign, launched by the American Board of Internal Medicine in response to a 2010 article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

That article challenged physicians to take the lead in health care reform. Rather than waiting for the government to impose new standards and regulations, the article encouraged physicians and professional medical societies to identify wasteful services and procedures that could be readily eliminated.

Last week's historic three days of arguments before the Supreme Court on the merits of the Affordable Care Act provided many head-scratching moments. Those naive enough to believe that the case was actually going to be considered on constitutional grounds (this being the Supreme Court, after all) were rudely awakened to an apparent actual agenda of partisan politics and corporate interests.

Broccoli was a key theme, startling the 50 million Americans who may be able to purchase green vegetables at the local market but are unable to purchase badly needed health insurance. The welfare of health insurers was a second prominent theme, providing concrete evidence to those who posit that our nation is no longer a government of the people, but rather a "government of the corporation".

The outrage has been profound, including Op-Ed pieces in The New York Times, featured articles in The New Yorker, and commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine.

First, the produce. During the second day of arguments, Justice Scalia attempted to define the market for health care. He said ". . . you define the market as food, therefore everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli." Chief Justice Roberts picked up the theme as easily as if he were choosing a ripe cantaloupe at his local farm stand. Roberts informed us that "a car or broccoli aren't purchased for their own sake, either." Broccoli is purchased to cover the need for food, we were sagely advised.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.

On Monday, March 26th, 2012, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius and two linked cases, the lawsuits against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA; signed into law by President Obama on 3/23/2010). The court announced on February 21st that it would hear 6 hours of arguments over 3 days, an historic and unprecedented amount of time. The last time the Supreme Court heard more than 2 hours of arguments was when it considered the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2003.

At issue in the cases before the Supreme Court is the constitutionality of federal involvement, interference, or interposition (depending on who's doing the interpreting) regarding activities of private citizens and activities of the states. The question of constitutionality of the ACA relates specifically to the Commerce Clause (U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3). The Commerce Clause states "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes". As with all clauses of the Constitution, the Commerce Clause must be interpreted and applied. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter and interpreter of all such applications, declaring the constitutionality (or lack thereof) of congressional and state legislation.

The challenges to the ACA state that the federal government has exceeded its constitutionally enumerated powers. The Tenth Amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The challenges suggest that the ACA attempts to wield a federal power that does not exist under the Constitution and attempts to interfere with powers appropriately "reserved" to the states and to "the people". The challenges assert that it is the right of a citizen, rather than a prerogative of the federal government, to determine whether she will purchase health insurance. The challenges also assert that the federal government cannot dictate how a state conducts its Medicaid program.

The Alden March Bioethics Institute offers graduate online masters in bioethics programs. For more information on the AMBI master of bioethics online program, please visit the AMBI site.