Facing Requests for Physician-Assisted Suicide: Toward a Practical and Principled Clinical Skill set

An 8-step approach is proposed for professionals responding to requests for physician-assisted suicide. The approach seeks to identify & treat the root causes of the request & aims to present a plan for consistent application of a set of clinical skills. Only 2 noncontentious principles are required: the patient should be free of unwanted intervention, & the physician must provide suffering patients with comfort care. Further testing for the clinical efficacy of this approach is needed.