Word: curran
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...agree with Drs. Curran and Cass-cells [Feb. 4] that for physicians to be involved in administering lethal injections in cases of capital punishment "would constitute a cruel and unusual breach of medical ethics." The Hippocratic oath-already eroded by legalized abortion -would be further undercut, and the physician's historic mission as healer would again be compromised by such a death-dealing task...
Writing in last week's New England Journal of Medicine, William J. Curran, 52, professor of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Ward Casscells, 28, a resident at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, maintain that death by injection, however carried out, violates the Hippocratic oath, by which all doctors vow never to harm their patients willfully. In fact, the oath specifically forbids using or suggesting the use of poisons. The policy adopted by Oklahoma tries to avoid any conflict with medical ethics by requiring "trained medical employees" to insert a drug-carrying catheter and inject the lethal...
Advocates of lethal injections counter that doctors should offer the comfort of a merciful death to a condemned prisoner. But, argue the authors, "surely this is begging the issue, as the person soon to be killed by the state is hardly analogous to the dying patient." Curran, who with other members of a Harvard committee conceived a "brain death" ethic (which calls for the cutting off of artificial life supports after brain activity ends), brands the doctor's role in death by injection one of "active killing." Adds Casscells, perhaps as an appeal to unconvinced colleagues: "The moral issue...
...going to be a very difficult decision to deal with," William J. Curran, Lee Professor of Legal Medicine, said yesterday. "It's a good basic legal principle to be able to refuse treatment. But this is not always in the best interest of the patient. They are making rulings that seem to be helping the rights of people, but don't seem to be helping their welfare," he added...
...Curran said the decision overreacts to the problem of doctors over-prescribing drugs to quiet down patients, and could cause an overreaction in the opposite direction, with patients refusing clearly helpful medication...