Invited Commentary

Commentary on ‘‘Murder or Mercy?’’

Authors: John Hardt, PhD

Abstract

The medical "professionalism" literature demonstrates in its breadth and variation less than uniformity concerning best practices and content foci. This observation makes the authors' presentation of an innovative medical education module, entitled "Murder or Mercy?," implemented "to equip UK medical students to respond ethically and sensitively to requests encountered as qualified doctors regarding euthanasia and assisted dying" of significant interest to those of us who work in medical education.1 The program is laudable on a variety of fronts including the use of course electives, "student selected components (SSCs)," to explore an ethical question of considerable importance at a level of analysis and integration that the core curriculum cannot accommodate. The authors' project contributes to the education of physicians prepared to contribute to an important social debate about the value of human life in a diminished state, the meaning and place of suffering in our self-understanding as a human community, the reality of death, and the role of medicine as either a willing or reluctant host to these questions.

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References

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