Nurse and physician assistant patients PDF

Running head: SHOULD NURSES AND PHYSICIANS ASSIST PATIENTS WHO
WANT TO END THEIR LIVES?
Should Nurses and Physicians Assist Patients Who Want to End their Lives?
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SHOULD NURSES AND PHYSICIANS ASSIST PATIENTS WHO WANT TO END
THEIR LIVES? 2
Should Nurses and Physicians Assist Patients Who Want to End their Lives?
Human life is treated with great dignity. For instance, every human being on earth is
entitled to the highest form of care. This international human right reveals the great deal of
dignity that is accorded to human life (Dyer, White and Rada, 2015). Patient Assisted Death
refers to a situation where a physician or a healthcare provider assists a palliative care patient
end their lives at their request. The physician achieves the goal through administering some
potentially lethal medications to help the terminally ill to end their lives. The topic has been
of great for centuries now. There is no federal legislation that provides the way forward
concerning how to act in a situation where a terminally ill patient requests to be assisted to
die. The supreme court decided that there is no constitutional right to patient assisted dying
and directed that issues surrounding the same be decided at the states level. There are several
states that have legalized patient assisted dying. These are Oregon, Washington, Colorado
and Hawaii. In Hawaii, legislation will start being in effect starting 2019. New York has not
yet legalized patient assisted dying. Following a case where a terminally ill patient (suffering
form brain cancer) moved from California to Oregon so that she may be assisted to die, New
York State has considered enacting a law to legalize the process. Two bills related to the
same were moved to the New York state assembly and senate. However, both bills did not go
beyond the committee stage.
Both those who support, and critics of patient assisted dying use ethical reasoning to
support their stands. Those who support legalization of the process use the following ethical
reasons to support their positions. First, is patient autonomy. A patient should have the right
to make decisions concerning their own health and wellbeing (Frye and Youngner, 2016). In