Related Experiment Videos
Caring for the terminally Ill
P B Bascom1, S W Tolle, C K Cassel
1Division of General Internal Medicine, Oregon Health Sciences University School of Medicine, Portland, USA.
Hospital Practice (1995)
|May 15, 1996
Abstract:
More than 50% of dying patients do not receive adequate symptomatic relief. Fear of hastening death is the primary reason for physicians' reluctance to prescribe high-dose pain medication. Yet the ethical principle of "double effect" clearly states that palliative care which results in respiratory depression is justified-as long as the goal of management is relief of suffering, rather than death.