Citation

Meyerson JL, McKinell KJ, Skarf LM, Nathan SN, Hinrichs KLM. J. Palliat. Med. 2019; 22(7): 870-872.

Affiliation

Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/jpm.2018.0171

PMID

30702373

Abstract

Requests for hastened death and suicidal ideation may be more prevalent in populations approaching the end of life. Often these wishes and thoughts occur in the context of concurrent psychiatric disorders and emotional suffering. We discuss the case of a veteran with terminal lung cancer and comorbid psychiatric illness who attempted suicide while under the care of an inpatient interdisciplinary hospice team and describe our team's response to this suicide attempt. We review risk factors for suicidality at end of life, challenges of distinguishing desire for hastened death from suicidality, and the ethics of resuscitation of a dying patient after a suicide attempt.

Keywords: United States of America USA

Language: en

Keywords

end of life; existential distress; suicide; veteran