The following is from a PBS site. It is about two years old.

A new controversy about the death penalty focuses not on the convicts, but on doctors and nurses who help end their lives. NOW asks the question: Should medical professionals play a part in state executions?


Since its beginnings in the 1980s, lethal injection has become the most popular execution method, resulting in increased participation by medical professionals in capital punishment.


"I don't know that I consider anybody an executioner, even the people that I know who push the drugs ... I look at it as the state is the executioner," "Karen", a nurse who has participated in 14 executions at a prison in Jackson, Georgia, told NOW.


Georgia, like a number of other states, requires that nurses and doctors be in attendance when an inmate is put to death. Karen, who did not want to show her face for fear of retribution, describes how medical personnel have been harassed and forced to go underground.

But that's not how most groups representing nurses and doctors, such as the American Medical Association, see things. They clearly state in a 1980 resolution that they oppose doctors helping the government carry out executions because a physician is "dedicated to preserving life."


Legal challenges in some states are changing execution protocol and increasing the need for medical personnel. Last month in Missouri a federal judge ordered the state to have a board-certified anesthesiologist assist in the lethal injection process. Earlier this year, California also ruled that an anesthesiologist should partake in executions. Both states have faced difficulties in finding physicians willing to participate. Executions in those states have been put on hold as a result.


The number of similar legal cases is set to rise since a Supreme Court ruling last month made it easier for death-row prisoners to challenge lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment.


How can doctors and nurses reconcile their need to participate in the death penalty while adhering to the ethical and moral codes of their profession?

We should have faith in our justice system but it is too hard when we see some of the underhanded things that some of the DAs pull.

Robyn, I am with you. I could never do this job. I would always wonder as well, What if?"

frumpster65: you make a very good point but I still could not do that job.

I don't know if I could do this or not.

This is a tough one. Would I say I was just following orders? What does that sound like? Recently an inmate sued to try to stop his execution because he is obese and a "tough stick". A co-worker told me I could probably get an 18 in him on the first try. Skill-wise, I could do it.  Knowing it was to put a human being to death, I could not.

For me, it raises bigger questions. What happens when we die? Is there really some kind of judgement waiting? Anybody can come to the hospital with chest pains and turn blue before they fill out a piece of paper, and we automatically respond, no questions asked. Why would eternity be anything less?

It is not my place to find fault with any nurse that would start that IV. That nurse would be one of the last people that the inmate would interact with; maybe that nurse would somehow be able to reach that person on some level. Or, maybe it would be just another IV stick, and just another pain-in-ass patient crying about getting an IV. Somebody has to be the one to get the task done. I could not do it, but if you can then I don't think of you as a killer.

There is no way i could do that!!!!! but actually i think it depends on why they are there. So maybe. it just depends. Because if they did something like raped/murdered someone then i bet i could. because that is one thing i do not handle well when people get murdered or raped and nothing happens to the person who did the crime. So now im leaning toward yes i think i could do it...

I am opposed to the death penalty. But only for the reason I do not trust COPS nor the LEGAL PROFESSION.

That being said, If there was some sort of magical assurance that only guilty  people were executed..... I would not have a problem with it.  As a matter of fact, given my profession,I would be damned good at it.

States requireing a BOARD CERTIFIED ANESTHESIOLOGIST?...I am pretty sure a CRNA could do the job and be much more cost effective.

In Missouri the outcry was over a physician who was NOT trained in anesthesiology giving the state doses of the medication....

. He was undermedicating the condemned and there was an issue of not having a patent IV.

The following would work 100% of the time

2 grams sodium thiopental,

20 miligrams rocuronium wait about 2 minutes then give

200 mEq potassium chloride.

I probably think that i would do it, considering that murder is the most terrible crime there is. Anything less than the death penalty is insult to the victim and the society. It says that we dont value the victim's life enough to punish the killer fully.

The meds and the dosages, as well as the entire protocol have been revealed extensively.

I do not believe in the death penalty.

I do believe in locking them away for life with no chance of parole and making them work 6 days a week from sunup to sundown to earn their keep while alive and to pay back the state for their trial[s] and their victims. No law library, no gyms or weightlifting, no hanging with the other yardbirds.

mrbrownrn49 says ...

The meds and the dosages, as well as the entire protocol have been revealed extensively.

I do not believe in the death penalty.

I do believe in locking them away for life with no chance of parole and making them work 6 days a week from sunup to sundown to earn their keep while alive and to pay back the state for their trial[s] and their victims. No law library, no gyms or weightlifting, no hanging with the other yardbirds.

I do believe in the death penalty.  But with all the problems our system has had lately of convicting innocent men, I think we should hold an indefinate moratorium until we figure out how to fix those problems.

The idea of "work sunup to sundown" sounds great in principle, but is ripe for abuse.  We don't need a return to Southern style chain gangs.

A better idea is to give drug addicts treatment and get them to be productive members of society again.  To educate inmates so they can get decent jobs.  I have no problem with schools in jails--the educational system failed them as children, so giving them a second chance to come out with job skills is far better than the lock 'em up and throw away the key model. 

Just warehousing people doesn't do a damn bit of good.  I worked in a state prison.  All it does is breed violence.

cdnurse says ...

 Several years ago I saw an article in the AJN about nurses who have to give lethal injections to inmates. The gist of the article was that such an action seems to go against the oath we take to do no harm.

For those of you who are for the death penalty, would you want this job? For all of you, what questions or comments would you want to make to the nurses who perform this job?

 

 

 

Unless these nurses had an order from a physician,... giving those drugs was a violation of the nurse practice act.

SEVOFLURANE says ...

cdnurse says ...

 Several years ago I saw an article in the AJN about nurses who have to give lethal injections to inmates. The gist of the article was that such an action seems to go against the oath we take to do no harm.

For those of you who are for the death penalty, would you want this job? For all of you, what questions or comments would you want to make to the nurses who perform this job?

 

 

 

Unless these nurses had an order from a physician,... giving those drugs was a violation of the nurse practice act.

Whether or not you have a physician's order, it is a violation of the Nightingale Pledge and unethical.  Nurses have no place in executions.  I wouldn't even start the IV.

In North Carolina there is a big controversy over the role of physicians in executions.  State law requires a physician be present.  The Medical Board says for a doctor to participate in an execution in any way is unethical and has threatened to discipline doctors.  So no doctor in the state will get involved.

Right now the General Assembly is at an impasse, and no executions are taking place.

You probably took it when you were pinned.  The Nightingale Pledge is a traditional part of pinning ceremonies.

You are right in that it does not have the force of law.  Neither does the Hippocratic Oath.  But both play a role in the definition of ethics for our profession.

I'd be curious to know if any BON has weighed in on the issue.