Surprisingly, after over 30 years of hospice care available for those who are terminally ill, the public and even physicians have interpreted end-of-life care, hospice and comfort care patient treatment as "murder, euthanasia and killing", Palliative medicine, treatment to relieve pain and discomfort, in patients who have no further treatment to resolve their disease is an established certified sub-specialty and yet physicians who perform this specialty are working under a cloud of such misperceptions. Read about this issue in Amednews (American Medical Association News).
Do you look at treatment by physicians, with the terminally ill patient's consent, to relieve the pain and suffering "murder, euthanasia or killing" just because the patient's life might be ended a bit sooner than if they were left untreated? Or might you look at pain unrelieved by the treatment of a doctor as "torture"? ..Maurice.
