It describes the situation faced by Dr. Marc Stern, who formerly headed the medically program for Washington state's prison population. Stern quit his job when directed to oversee an execution.
Stern felt the execution violated his ethical obligation as a physician to "first do no harm." Also, The American Medical Association, according to the article, disapproves of physician participation in lethal injections.
Other medical staff with the Department of Corrections continued to work on the execution that Stern found objectionable, despite Stern directing them not to.
This raises many interesting issues:
Should a medical viagra cialis online pharmacy pharmacy be involved with an execution?
Should other medical staff be involved with an execution?
Should a doctor work for a prison system if he/she is opposed to execution?
What would a prison system do without medical staff?
How could a lethal injection possibly be administered without some sort of medical supervision?
Was Stern right to try to impose his ethical concerns onto other staff at the DOC?
Was Stern right to quit over the execution?
Yet another example of how murky the world of medical ethics can be.
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