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Relieving Pain and Foreseeing Death: A Paradox About Accountability and Blame

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Susana Nuccetelli  and
Gary Seay
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Extract

In a familiar moral dilemma faced by physicians who care for the dying, some patients who are within days or hours of death may experience suffering in a degree that cannot be relieved by ordinary levels of analgesia. In such cases, it may sometimes be possible to honor a competent patient's request for pain relief only by giving an injection of narcotics in a dosage so large that the patient's death is thereby hastened. Doctors rightly worry that taking an action likely to result in a patient's death may violate the Hippocratic injunction against the direct killing of anyone in their care.

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Article
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Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Spring 2000 , pp. 19 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2000

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References

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