Euthanasia requests in a Canadian psychiatric outpatient clinic: A case series part 2 of the McGill University euthanasia in psychiatry case series

Abstract

The Canadian province of Quebec enacted in 2014 a legislation that permitted medical assistance in dying (MAID) under specific conditions and the rest of Canada followed suit in June 2016. In this article, which is the second in a set of case series of requests for MAID in Canadian psychiatry, we present the cases of two patients who made a request for MAID to their treating psychiatrist in an outpatient clinic. While one is advanced in age and suffering from intense physical and psychic pain with little if any psychiatric comorbidity, the other is a young and medically healthy woman who nonetheless suffers from extensive psychiatric comorbidity. This article discusses both cases in light of recent scientific literature and case law that is slowly emerging in Canada, focusing on the concepts of the end of life and its legal definition as well as psychic suffering and its management in those wishing to receive physician-assisted dying. In our conclusion, we stress the need to clarify the definition of treatment resistance, the necessity to determine each physician's role when many are involved, as well as the importance of treating psychic pain holistically, which can sometimes require going beyond standard psychiatric care.