Decisionally capable suicide

Key Points

In this paradigm-shifting paper, Drs. Yager, Ganzini, and colleagues urge us to recognize patients who are neither depressed nor cognitively compromised who, for rational reasons, choose to end their life.
This is not “physician-assisted suicide”, as in Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. This is allowing a patient’s suicide planning to proceed, sometimes even staying engaged and facilitating decision making and planning when otherwise interfering (e.g., involuntary hospitalization) would potentially “do more harm.”

Text version

For the last Quick Take in this series, I’d like to point out the arrival of a new article in the *Journal of Clinical Psychiatry* from July and August 2018. The title is Working with Decisionally Capable Patients Who are Determined to End Their Own Lives. In case you haven’t seen this article and wouldn’t have a chance to read it, I’d like to just tell you what I think are the implications.

This is a paradigm shift, in my view, in the world of psychiatry. This is not physician-assisted suicide, as in my home state of Oregon here in the United States. It is legal for a physician to participate in bringing about the death of a patient who is terminally ill, having 6 months or less to live due to a medical condition. This is not about that. This is about patients who, for one reason or another,

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05. Decisionally capable suicide

James Phelps, M.D.

Key Points

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James Phelps, M.D.

Key Points

Downloads for Offline Access

Text version

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