LETTERS: LIVING WITH CARE OR DEATH WITH DIGNITY

To the editor:

Last year the American Medical Association kicked off a two-year campaign to educate the country's doctors on how to better care for terminally ill patients. Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care will attempt to reach every doctor in the United States in a grass-roots, train-the-trainer program. This training will be funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Robert Reardon, AMA board chairman, called it one of the most important initiatives in which the AMA ever has been involved. "A lot of doctors are not comfortable dealing with dying patients. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the physician is aware there are options available to deal with end-of-life care."Robert Wood Johnson Foundation vice president Doriane Miller said, "Care at the end of life has traditionally been overlooked in the past. A study conducted found that there was virtually no difference between cases where patients communicated well with their primary physician and where they did not. Life, loss of independence and pain management were also cited as areas which needed to be addressed." Reardon said doctors "probably were not meeting patients' needs at the end of life. Every care giver needs to be educated to the needs of the terminally ill patients, and physicians need to be honest with their patients when they have reached the point that they have done all they can." Reardon said this program will also lessen the demand for assisted suicide, which the AMA has always opposed on ethical grounds. The country as a whole has been pondering the question of death with dignity for many years. There is nothing wrong with refusing further treatment and letting nature take its course if the chance of recovery from treatment is very slim. There is no reason why anyone can't be given sufficient medication to control pain. Many communities have a hospice program. Southeast Missouri Hospital has a hospice program in Cape Girardeau. Physicians, nurses and volunteers assist the terminally ill and their families in facing the fears and uncertainties of a terminal illness. Pain is controlled for the patient. Loving care is given to the patient and they are helped to face the fears of loss of control of their bodily functions and their environment. Families are counseled along with their patients. Great care is given to help the terminally ill patients to continue to live the remainder of their lives with dignity. Some people assume that being dignified is more important than being alive and that the only dignity is in death by suicide. Those who approve of euthanasia and assisted suicide perceive people who are disabled, old or weak as undignified. What they are suggesting is that life is only for the healthy, handsome and strong and that those who dont fit that definition should be ashamed of themselves and consider their lives not worth living. Therefore, they justify using modern techniques to search out and destroy disabled children before they're born and nudge the elderly to cut short their untidy lives. They perceive a society where only the perfect are allowed to live. On Nov. 22 "60 Minutes" showed Jack Kevorkian administering a lethal injection to a man who had Lou Gehrig's disease. The motivation for the showing was that CBS believed it performed a valuable service because the subject went to the core of national debate. Yet last January all of the major networks -- CBS, NBC, FOX and CNN -- refused to air a 30-second media spot featuring one of the final interviews with Mother Teresa, given just months before her death in which she made concerned comments about life issues. Mother Teresa transcended all religions and all classes. In the eyes of the world, she was a humanitarian. In the land of the Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, she was considered a saint. But CBS and all of the other networks considered her so controversial that they censored her. By virtue of their programming, the networks stated a collective opinion which is largely in favor of abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. If you were disgusted at what CBS did in airing this and you have a computer, you can contact the network at www.cbs.com/navbar/feedback.html. CHRISTINE E. STEPHENS

Cape Girardeau