Critical Care Nurses & Euthansia

Question:
The ANA Code of Ethics does allow for appropriate management of pain at the end of life even in the light of negative side effects (such as depression of respirations). This is considered ethical. What is not ethical is the single, isolated and secret actions of people (nurses, physician,s family members, etc) who choose to actively euthanize. In the newspaper article, it was noted that 8 survey respondents said that they had assisted in the deaths of at least 20 patients. This was shocking to me. In all my years (16 of my 19 years in nursing), in critical care, I have never seen indication or evidence that this sort of thing might be happening. What distressed me is that one of our local physician/ethisist, Dr. Steven Miles, stated in the newspaper article that 16% of nurses doing this type of thing "sounded about right."

I am the only staff nurse on the ethics committee of our hospital. We have a wonderful mechanism for ethical discussions and decision-making regarding these difficult situations. I wonder why we aren't utilized more, especially if this is happening at our hospital? The report does tell me that, if it is indeed, true, we (in the Ethics Committee) are not doing a very good job of education/dialogue with our nursing staff.

Answer:
I'm an ADN and I worked in ICU for a long time. But you know, if the researchers really wanted to know specifically about ICU nurses why didn't they submit it to one of the critical care nursing journals? I'm sure the folks who certify people as CCRNs put out a journal.

I can see some value in sending a survey to readers of Nursing if they at want to know about the nursing profession as a whole. I mean, lets not kid ourselves that ICU nurses are the only folks tempted to euthenasia. I suspect that there are people who do 'mercy killings' of little old people with Alzheimers in nursing homes. Certainly an area worth investigation.

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