Conscience and care: Physicians' ethical barriers to medical aid in dying

May 31 2024University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Recently published research led by the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus examined the prevalence -; and impact -; of physicians' ethical or religious barriers to their involvement in medical aid in dying , a multi-step process where a physician provides a terminally ill adult with decision-making capacity with a lethal dose of medication to end their life.

Medical aid in dying is under consideration in a number of states, and it comes up every legislative session. You cannot make policy around things that are not well understood, and so it was critical to gather data to better understand what's going on. It is important to look at the actual behaviors of physicians. This research offers essentially the first look into what is happening on the ground in a previously hidden and difficult-to-study population.

A reason for the lack of data is because there are extensive protections in place for physician and patient privacy. As a result, the vast majority of data that exists are from qualitative studies or surveys of the general physician population. "We felt there was an opportunity to look at this untapped aspect of the survey research. We had a hunch that there was something about ethical or religious barriers that may be different than other types of barriers physicians faced, like lack of time or fear of stigma," Hamer says.

What the research shows Out of the 300 survey respondents, 26% of physicians likely to care for MAiD-eligible patients in Colorado reported large ethical and/or religious barriers to participating in MAiD activities. The survey found that only 5% of physicians with conscience-based barriers had served as a MAiD consultant, as compared to 31% of physicians without conscience-based barriers. When it came to serving as a MAiD attending, no physicians with conscience-based barriers had served in this role compared to 21% of physicians without these barriers.

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