Continued from last week
Physicians who are deeply committed to the Hippocratic Oath must experience great agony when their patients are terminally ill, and they (the doctors) can do nothing treatment-wise to save them. At best the doctors (and family) can try to alleviate the pain and suffering of their patients. Let it be clear that although we can send men to the moon and bring them back safely, medicine/science have not been able to conquer pain for a long and continuous period. Gravely sick and dying persons have to endure the torture which accompanies slow death. Caring physicians like Dr Kevorkian opted to offer euthanasia as the ultima ratio (the final solution) to stop the suffering. Dr Kevorkian went to jail for his conviction. Religionists and doctors who are influenced by religious teachings (yes, the same ones who support the death penalty of convicted criminals) emerge in masses and called Dr Kevorkian “Doctor Death,” the personification of evil, and compared him with Josef Mengele, the Nazi ‘doctor’ who carried out the most heinous experiments in Auschwitz, a most notorious German concentration camp.
Then there are legal considerations. Yes, the practising medicos really have it tough. In fact, some opt for something they call MTI (Minimal Therapeutic Intervention), so as to hasten the demise of the terminally ill, while ensuring that the patient is as comfortable as possible in the last days/weeks/months.
We veterinarians do not experience, at the same level, the heart-wrenching situation as do the practitioners of human medicine. We can euthanize a suffering animal. Nevertheless, as mentioned in