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Mark Goulston, M.D., Posted: July 9, 2009 02:17 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-g..._b_228811.html

Devastating illnesses can bring patients to the brink of a seemingly agreeable suicide. The role of the psychiatrist can be to look coldly through the pain and determine if there is a way to save the patient's life and make it worth enduring. Then the clinician must be prepared to enact what he perceives.

In 1986, my mentor and suicidologist, Dr. Edwin Shneidman, asked me to see a patient that he had consulted on. Before I did, he told me the following:

The patient was a 64 year old man, housebound from end stage Parkinson's Disease. He had requested to be put out of his misery. He not only desired to be allowed to die, but had asked for help to accomplish the deed. He was unable to get out of bed to retrieve his stockpile of pills or his handgun.

This man previously had been a successful professional athlete. He had also been an example of fortitude and persistence to his wife of 30 years and to his four sons. He had continued as a coach, hiding the early signs of Parkinsonism from his players and children, saying he did not want to be pitied. For six years; he functioned-fairly well. But during the last two, he had deteriorated drastically.