ABSTRACT

Euthanasia is the medical and painless practice of ending the life of a patient through an omission or an act performed on his/her own request, or the permission of his/her legal guardian or heirs if the person cannot give a declaration of intent, in order to end his/her suffering due to an untreatable and pity-evoking disease. This study compares the opinions of the physicians dealing with severely ill or terminal patients with the opinions of the physicians dealing with non-terminal patients on euthanasia.

Our survey was conducted on the physicians who served at the basic sciences and hemodialysis departments, intensive care units, hematology and oncology wards, and internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry and physical therapy clinics of the medical faculty hospitals of the Dicle and Gaziantep Universities during the year 2013. The opinions of 169 individuals on gender, age, marital status, number of children, family structure, the department they work in, the frequency they are faced with death, professional experience, presence of any bedridden relatives, and their view on requesting euthanasia for themselves or their relatives were asked for the purposes of the study.

Among the subjects included in the survey, 60 (35.5%) were female while 109 (64.5% were male. In terms of the marital status, 105 (62.1%) were married, 63 (37.3%) were single and 1 (0.6%) was widowed. Eightyfive subjects (50.3%) declared that they may think of euthanasia depending on the age and diagnosis, 20 (11.8%) were undecided, while 64 subjects (37.9%) stated that they would never think of euthanasia even in a terminal case.

Beyond its medical and legal aspects, euthanasia is also associated with people's emotional state and belief systems. Whether it is active or passive, euthanasia is a very grave decision for health professionals, patients, and relatives of the patients.