ReviewBMC medical ethics2020
US medical and surgical society position statements on physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia: a review.
Review in BMC medical ethics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Why Canadian MAiD is Not a Medical Procedure.The Linacre quarterly · 2026Article
- Medical Aid in Dying: A Narrative Review of the Recent Academic Literature in the United States.Cureus · 2026Review
- On the topical issue of assisted dying: the insurmountable challenges of human existence, and the right to exit.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Competing World Views, Professional Norms, and Conscience.HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues · 2025Article
- Article
- Should Physician-Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia be Legalized in the United States? A Medically Informed Perspective.Journal of religion and health · 2024Review
- When access to medical aid in dying is difficult: The story of my father.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2022Article
- MAID ready for primetime?: A survey of SGO members regarding medical aid in dying (MAID).Gynecologic oncology reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAn analysis of the position statements of secular US medical and surgical professional societies on physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia have not been published recently. Available statements were evaluated for position, content, and sentiment.
methodsIn order to create a comprehensive list of secular medical and surgical societies, the results of a systematic search using Google were cross-referenced with a list of societies that have a seat on the American Medical Association House of Delegates. Societies with position statements were identified. These statements were divided into 5 categories: opposed to PAS and/or euthanasia, studied neutrality, supportive, acknowledgement without statement, and no statement. Linguistic analysis was performed using RapidMinder in order to determine word frequency and sentiment respective to individual statements. To ensure accuracy, only statements with word counts > 100 were analyzed. A 2-tailed independent t test was used to test for variance among sentiment scores of opposing and studied neutrality statements.
resultsOf 150 societies, only 12 (8%) have position statements on PAS and euthanasia: 11 for PAS (5 opposing and 4 studied neutrality) and 9 for euthanasia (6 opposing and 2 studied neutrality). Although the most popular words used in opposing and studied neutrality statements are similar, notable exceptions exist (suicide, medicine, and treatment appear frequently in opposing statements, but not in studied neutrality statements, whereas psychologists, law, and individuals appear frequently in studied neutrality statements, but not in opposing statements). Sentiment scores for opposing and studied neutrality statements do not differ (mean, 0.094 vs. 0.104; P = 0.90).
conclusionsFew US medical and surgical societies have position statements on PAS and euthanasia. Among them, opposing and studied neutrality statements share similar linguistic sentiment. Opposing and studied neutrality statements have clear differences, but share recommendations. Both opposing and studied neutrality statements cite potential risks of PAS legalization and suggest that good palliative care might diminish a patient's desire for PAS.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.