How healthcare professionals might promote the case for assisted dying

摘要

ANN McPHERSON was a GP who died of pancreatic cancer in May of this year (see Panel below). Dr McPherson, together with other like-minded doctors and nurses, founded Health Professionals for Assisted Dying (HPAD) in October 2010 to campaign for a change in the law to allow doctors to assist mentally competent adults with terminal illness to die when and where they wish, within well defined safeguards. The association currently has more than 500 members and is growing. The large majority are doctors and nurses, but pharmacists, as the professionals who would supply the drugs for assisted dying, are beginning to join.