title: Treating the condemned to death.
abstract: Psychiatrists should refrain from treating mentally ill prisoners on death row in order to restore their "competency to be executed." Such "treatment" renders them double agents, in the service of the state as well as the prisoner. Participation in an act that will bring about a prisoner's death is expressly forbidden by the AMA Code of Ethics. It recalls the behavior of Nazi physicians, who used their professional skills not to heal but to kill.
mesh_terms: D002203:Capital Punishment; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D028642:Persons with Psychiatric Disorders; D028683:National Socialism; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000592:standards*; D035502:Trust; D014481:United States