In 2002, the government of the Netherlands explicitly legalizedeuthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. These controversialend-of-life practices had been openly tolerated and studiedfor many years before legalization, and Dutch physicians wereexpected to voluntarily report their participation in theseacts, trusting that they would be acquitted of any legal wrongdoingprovided that they had met the accepted criteria for "carefulpractice." Not surprisingly, the reporting rates have increasedsince the law was passed — from 18% in 1990 to approximately80% in 2005, as reported by van der Heide and colleagues inthis issue of the Journal (pages 1957–1965). . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Source Information
Dr. Quill is a professor of medicine, psychiatry, and medical humanities and the director of the Center for Ethics, Humanities, and Palliative Care at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, NY.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Steinbrook, R.
(2008). Physician-Assisted Death -- From Oregon to Washington State. NEJM
359: 2513-2515
[Full Text]
Buiting, H. M., Rietjens, J. A.C., Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. D., van der Maas, P. J., van Delden, J. J. M., van der Heide, A.
(2008). A comparison of physicians' end-of-life decision making for non-western migrants and Dutch natives in the Netherlands. Eur J Public Health
18: 681-687
[Abstract][Full Text]
Lindblad, A., Lofmark, R., Lynoe, N.
(2008). Physician-assisted suicide: a survey of attitudes among Swedish physicians. Scand J Public Health
36: 720-727
[Abstract]
Abrahm, J. L.
(2008). Patient and Family Requests for Hastened Death. ASH Education Book
2008: 475-480
[Abstract][Full Text]
Previous
