Doctors' attitudes surveyed

doi:10.1136/bmj.b3761

Published 14 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3761
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3761

Letters

Assisted dying debate

Doctors’ attitudes surveyed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Delamothe argues that it is "time for a carefully worded secretballot" of UK doctors, having reported that 79% of the generalpublic in a Harris poll believe in a "right to die" for theterminally ill.¹

The need to clarify medical views on this subject was the motivationfor my recently published survey of a large representative sampleof UK doctors.² I used the same questions as those used in surveysof the general public in British social attitudes surveys, which,like the Harris poll, have shown substantial public supportfor the legalisation of assisted dying.

The survey showed that the majority of UK doctors are opposedto the legalisation of euthanasia or physician assisted dying,whether in cases of terminal illness or not. There are somevariations between different groups of doctors, the most significantbeing whether a doctor is religious. Doctors specialising inpalliative medicine are the . . . [Full text of this article]

Clive Seale, professor of medical sociology¹

¹ Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AT

c.seale@qmul.ac.uk

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