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Medical house officers’ attitudes toward vigorous analgesia, terminal sedation, and physician-assisted suicide

Department of Internal Medicine and Program in Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa

Barry J. Wu, MD

Department of Internal Medicine, Hospital of Saint Raphael, New Haven, Connecticut

James N. Kirkpatrick, MD

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Chicago Hospitals, Chicago, Illinois

Asha Thomas-Geevarghese, MD

Department of Medicine, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, New York

Mary Vaughan-Sarrazin, PhD

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa

In 2000, the authors surveyed 236 medical house officers in three internal medicine residency programs in Connecticut to assess attitudes toward vigorous analgesia, terminal sedation, and physician-assisted suicide. The goal was to identify associations between these attitudes and training, demographic, and religious factors.

The results of the study indicated that most medical house officers supported vigorous analgesia, the majority supported terminal sedation, but only a minority supported physician-assisted suicide. Some house officers’ attitudes toward terminal sedation and assisted suicide may have been influenced by their religious commitments and the pressures of training.

Key Words: terminal sedation • physician-assisted suicide • vigorous analgesia • pain management • palliation • endof-life care • ethics • religion

American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, Vol. 21, No. 5, 381-387 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/104990910402100514


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