Boletín de la Asociación Médica de Puerto Rico
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Comparative Study
Attitudes toward euthanasia, assisted suicide and termination of life-sustaining treatment of Puerto Rican medical students, medical residents, and faculty.
To elicit the opinion of Puerto Rican medical students, residents and internal medicine faculty as to the appropriateness of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide and end-of-life management. ⋯ The acceptance of euthanasia was inversely proportional to the clinical experience of the respondents: 40 per cent among students but only 20 per cent by the faculty. Withholding and withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment was most acceptable to the faculty (88 per cent) but it was also favored by most of the students and residents (68 and 67 per cent respectively). Eighty per cent of the faculty, 79 per cent of the residents, but only 50 per cent of the students considered that prescribing full doses of drugs to alleviate pain if they knew it would hasten death, was ethical. The medical profession should take notice of evolving concepts in end-of-life management.