End of Life: Physician Assisted Suicide Outline

End of Life: Physician Assisted Suicide

The umbrella topic to be covered in this task is “end of life” while the specific topic is “Physician Assisted Suicide.” This paper seeks to explore the ethical debate of physician assisted suicide as an end of life alternative. Is it ethical for physicians to assist patients end their lives and how are they expected to solve this ethical dilemma? The paper will also explore the circumstances under which physicians can be allowed to provide the end-of-life services. Some of the ethical dilemmas that may arise during the EOL care include communication breakdowns, compromised patient autonomy, shared decision making, ineffective management of symptoms and non-beneficial care (Ahlzen, 2020).

This topic is relevant since there is an upward trend of patients that need physician assistance to end life. It is however critical to understand the existing legal and ethical distinction between the physician-assisted end of life and other end-of-life issues. The topic brings forth the ethical debate on the wish to allow the patient the autonomy to request for a peaceful and dignified death, and on the other hand, the call for respect for human life (Braswell, 2018). The cultural and religious issues surrounding end-of-life makes this debate a worthwhile one since it calls on physicians to embrace cultural sensitivity as they critically assess the legal and ethical implications of physician-assisted death. There are notable reasons as to why I selected this topic for discussion. First, there is a thin line between the traditional professional ethic of caring and healing and granting the patient the ethical autonomy to make decisions regarding their lives (Sulmasy & Mueller, 2017). Since some states like Colorado, California and Vermont…