Why Don’t Pharmacy Groups Condemn Lethal Injection Role?
From the article:
Professional pharmacy organizations and their membership view the profession differently from those of medicine, nursing, public health, and emergency medical technicians and paramedics. Medicine and the other allied health professions have established codes of conduct that condemn any active involvement or facilitation of execution as a violation of professional ethics.
But not pharmacy.
The American Board of Anesthesiologists has gone even further in mandating that their board certification will be revoked for any anesthesiology participating in capital punishment, thereby precluding their ability to practice in most institutions.
Public Citizen’s Sidney Wolfe opined in The New York Times on April 30 that, “it is reprehensible when a physician deliberately participates, in any way, in the intentional killing of another human being by involvement in an execution. Such action should swiftly result in the lifelong loss of the license to practice medicine.
Pharmacist’s Oath:
“I promise to devote myself to a lifetime of service to others through the profession of pharmacy. In fulfilling this vow:
- I will consider the welfare of humanity and relief of suffering my primary concerns.
- I will apply my knowledge, experience, and skills to the best of my ability to assure optimal outcomes for my patients.
- I will respect and protect all personal and health information entrusted to me.
- I will accept the lifelong obligation to improve my professional knowledge and competence.
- I will hold myself and my colleagues to the highest principles of our profession’s moral, ethical and legal conduct.
- I will embrace and advocate changes that improve patient care.
- I will utilize my knowledge, skills, experiences, and values to prepare the next generation of pharmacists.
I take these vows voluntarily with the full realization of the responsibility with which I am entrusted by the public.”
Collectively, individually and thru our associations.. we seem unable to align ourselves with others in the “medical community”.. we fight to be recognized as a healthcare professional all the while our actions – and not just on this issue of execution by lethal injection – suggests that we wish to march to beat of a different drummer.
No matter what your individual beliefs are about capital punishment.. if your are a Pharmacist… your individual beliefs may be “smothered” by what our society believes what is put forth by our national associations .. even if you don’t belong to one of the national associations…
Filed under: General Problems
Part of the oath states relief of human suffering. That can be interpreted many different ways. After watching how much more peaceful my dogs assisted death was compared to that of my father dying of cancer, I began to realize we in America care more about our pets than our people.
We know this. So very true sir. I love my pets. The unconditional love they return is the reason. We do not have the same unconditional love always for some in our families always. We should honor our parents unconditionally. I try but it’s not always done because of the other responsibility’s we have. Criminals are human, sometimes we forget this. They do deserve a measure of mercy and we do not live in the dark ages. Some conditions in our institutions mirror the past. We all fall short of the wages of sin.
If they haven’t, I am quite sure they will.
Yes, The Pharmaceutical Companies do NOT wish to be associated with the use of their products used to carry out lethal injections in a manner inconsistent with the indications of the legitimate protocol for which these are intended. Likewise, no pharmacist would sanction the death knell for any purpose outside any such indication in direct contrast to the outh they are directed to obey by law and their allegiance.