Right to die?

[dangoball]

While I can see both sides of the argument here, and am in no way qualified to answer this sort of thing, I will say this: I figure it's so frighteningly easy to die by accident, there's no way you could fail to kill yourself if you truly meant it. I can only see a 'failed' suicide attempt as a desperate cry for help. To go screaming in the face of millions of years of evolution and survival instinct takes some serious commitment.

I will have to disagree with you on failed suicides. Yes, some (maybe most) of them are calls for help, like wrist cutting or jumping of a building (lot of time to get saved/lots of onlookers), however, luck is a *****. You can die when you slip on stairs and you can survive a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, and not only by using .38 or .22LR. Shaky hand and all that sawn-off shotgun will do is blast of your face, leaving you alive and in hell of a pain. Heck, you can even survive bathing in gasoline and lighting yourself on fire (and then you'll know what wanting to die really means).
Long story short, human body is not as fragile and survival instinct is quite strong. Deaths by accident seem so easy because nothing in you expects life threatening situation, therefore no defensive mechanism kick in. When you want to kill yourself your body knows and tries to survive.

OT:
Yes, I firmly believe that euthanasia should be a human right and it sickens me when law forbids terminally ill person in lots of pain from dying because "it's inhumane". We put our pets to rest with the logic that it's to "ease their suffering", so why can't that logic apply to a fellow human?

In OPs case, I would consider that a waste of resources but as a doctor I would try to save him. With minimal effort, just so I don't loose my license.

 

[DanDeFool]

Ok, been rolling this one about in my head, thought I might as well get a little discussion going.
I work in neurological operating theatres as a nurse. A few nights ago while I was working we had an emergency patient come in after throwing themselves in front of a car. The patient was forty years old, had a history of depression and alcoholism, and this was not their first suicide attempt.

By the time they came to theatres their pupils had been fixed and dilated for about an hour, if you're not too sure what this means, I can tell you it's definitely not good news. This person was basically rolling through the doors dead.
The decision was made to do everything we could to save the persons life, even though both surgeons and the anaesthetist thought it was a forgone conclusion.
I thought to myself, is this a waste of time and resources?

Don't get me wrong here, the whole reason I do what I do is because I want to help people, but would this person thank us for doing it? If they miraculously survive are they not going to just try again? It really hit home to me the fragile balance doctors have to keep between respecting the wishes of a patient and doing everything in their power to save lives. It's also worth keeping in mind that anyone has the right to refuse life saving surgery if they're capable of doing so.

What decision would you guys make if you were in the doctors position?

In the doctors position? You try to save that person, because litigation does not care about right and wrong. If you make a judgment call not to try and save the person (triage notwithstanding), and you don't have a legally-binding DNR in your hand, my guess is that if anyone tries to take you to court, you're brown bread.

I wouldn't worry about the morality too much, since you're already dealing with the most amoral force in the universe: lawyers.

 

[PanasonicYouth]

One thing that really made me start thinking about it is that in the past I've seen people come in after accidents in similar conditions injury wise, and the decision be made to not do anything.

I also strongly disagree with people saying that the human body is not as fragile as you'd think. I've seen a teenage boy come in brain-dead after having a half-full can of beer thrown at the back of his head.
Although I'll admit that physiologically everyone is different, luck is the main factor in situations like that, not the durability of human biology

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Maybe bringing someone away from death's cold, inevitable embrace will change them in ways they themselves never anticipated. Every human life is capable of producing something magical but its is not for us to say who will be able to pull off something extraordinary in their lifetime and who won't. What if, by not saving someone who was so close to death that the odds of survival were close to nil, we lost our generation's Bach or Einstein? Death we can't prevent steals away too many opportunities for human achievement as it is.

I say try to save everyone you can.

 

[miketehmage]

I say save them. If they are depressed, start therapy, if not, let them go do whatever. If someone tries to commit suicide in a way that doesn't absolutely ensure their death, it is often a cry for help rather than an attempt on their life. So to let them die would be to ignore that cry for help.