Specialists have varying attitudes to treating terminally ill patients
Anaesthetists, obstetricians and gynaecologists are more likely to euthanase terminally ill patients with less than three months to live compared with other specialists, a study has found.
The doctors were also stronger supporters of sedating patients in their dying weeks and months compared with specialists who work regularly in palliative care such as oncologists and geriatricians.
Researchers from the University of Queensland discovered the contrast after surveying more than 1,400 Australian doctors about how they would treat terminally ill patients in different circumstances.
The study, published in The Medical Journal of Australia, found that 25% of the 169 anaesthetists surveyed would help a patient commit suicide if they had two weeks to live and pain that was difficult to control.
Within the same group, 22% of anaesthetists said they would euthanase a patient with three months to live who had pain that could be adequately controlled but was extremely tired, short of breath and bedridden.
The next most likely group to assist suicide in the same circumstances were obstetricians and gynaecologists, with 21% of the 126 surveyed saying they would help the suicide of a patient with two weeks to live. For a patient with three months to live, 20% of the respondents said they would assist suicide.
In comparison, only 1% of the 121 oncologists surveyed said they would assist suicide in both scenarios. Similarly, only 1-2% of the 120 geriatricians surveyed said they would assist suicide for patients in both cases.
