This article notes that health care providers are late-comers to the physician-assisted suicide (PAS) debate. They can offer crucial knowledge & experience. Methodologies developed for the study of completed suicide, applicability to the terminally ill, & complex unanswered questions are addressed. Psychiatry’s contributions to understanding the doctor-patient relationship – fundamental to the practice of psychodynamically informed treatments – have been ignored in the PAS debate. (23 refs.)