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Definition:
1. The physician provides the necessary means or information and the patient performs the action that ends his or her life.

2. Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician facilitates a patient's death by providing the necessary means and/or information to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act (e.g., the physician provides sleeping pills and information about the lethal dose, while aware that the patient may commit suicide).

3. When a physician provides either equipment or medication, or informs the patient of the most efficacious use of already available means, for the purpose of assisting the patient to end his or her own life.

4. Under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act physicians are permitted to write prescriptions for a lethal dosage of medication to people with a terminal illness. This procedure is also known as physician-assisted suicide.

Sources:
Physician-Assisted Suicide. 1996. American Medical Association (Professionalism) Code of Ethics: E-2.211 Available at: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/8459.html
American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Position Statement. 2002. Physician-assisted Suicide and Voluntary Active Euthanasia. AGS Ethics Committee. Available at: http://www.americangeriatrics.org/products/positionpapers/vae94.shtml
Physician-Assisted Suicide. Oregon. Department of Human Services. Available at: http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/faqs.shtml

Also Known As: Death with Dignity