Yes, yes, the handwringing continues. Why don’t we cut the balderdash and say, “Yeah, we’re doctors, we can turn your machines off any anytime. You die, we move on, have a nice day . . . “
Turning off heart devices near life's end stirs ethical, legal debates
A survey shows that nearly all physicians approve of turning off a defibrillator, but nearly a third say withdrawing a pacemaker amounts to assisted suicide.
Many physicians believe that deactivating heart devices is a form of physician-aided death, according to a survey published in the November Mayo
Clinic Proceedings.
"Almost one-third of medical professionals surveyed considered withdrawal of a pacemaker in a pacemaker-dependent patient as physician- assisted suicide or euthanasia, but only a very small percentage believed the same about an ICD," said Samuel J. Asirvatham, MD, the study's lead author and an electrophysiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. more
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