Although medical educators have always taught future healthcare professionals that it’s immoral to end someone’s life on purpose, they’ll be changing their tune in accordance with Canada’s move towards legalized physician-assisted death.
Canada’s 17 faculties of medicine are in the process of updating their curriculum to cover assisted dying for the next generation of doctors.
Dr. Richard Reznick, dean of the faculty of health sciences at Queen’s University in Kingston, says if it becomes a standard of practice for a small subset of patients who desire assisted death — and they meet all of the considerations — then physicians need to be trained in how to handle the situation.
In February, the Supreme Court of Canada gave Parliament one year to create a new law that recognizes the right of consenting adults with “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions to seek a doctor’s assistance to end their lives.
If the law passes, Reznick says medical educators would need to be respectful of the fact that not all medical students or residents may choose to participate in assisted deaths — and this training would not be a mandatory core competency of their medical education.
