title: Physicians' willingness to participate in the process of lethal injection for capital punishment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It has been found that physicians condone colleague involvement in capital punishment. Physicians' own willingness to participate has not been explored.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine physicians' willingness to be involved in cases of capital punishment.
  
  
  METHODS
  Survey exploring physicians' willingness to participate in 10 aspects of capital punishment by lethal injection, 8 of which are disallowed by the American Medical Association.
  
  
  METHODS
  United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  1000 randomly selected practicing physicians.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questions assessing willingness to be involved in and attitudes toward capital punishment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  41% of respondents indicated that they would perform at least one action disallowed by the American Medical Association; 25% would perform five or more disallowed actions. Perceived duty to society (P < 0.001), approval of the death penalty (P < 0.001), and approval of assisted suicide (P = 0.015) correlated with increased willingness to perform disallowed actions. Only 3% of respondents knew of any guidelines on this issue.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite medical society policies, many physicians would be willing to be involved in the execution of adults. The medical profession needs to be better informed about the ethical issues involved in physician participation in capital punishment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Christiana Care Health System, 501 West 14th Street, Wilmington, DE 19899, USA. nfarber@christianacare.org
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Farber
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Aboff
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.forename: E B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: E G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Boyer
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Ubel
mesh_terms: D000574:American Medical Association; D002203:Capital Punishment / Q000379:methods*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007267:Injections; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010819:Physician's Role; D014481:United States