On November 4, 2008, Washington State passed the Washington Death with Dignity Act, Initiative 1000 (RCW 70.245). This act allows terminally ill adults, seeking to end their life, to request lethal doses of medication from medical and osteopathic physicians.
Heritage Family Medicine DOES NOT practice euthanasia or Rx for patients clearly intending to take their own lives.
Heritage Family Medicine does believe life to be a sacred gift and its preservation an inviolate trust that physicians have pledged themselves to since the days of Hypocrites - himself a "pagan" - yet, recognizing the utter hubris - an affront to the gods - of deliberately terminating a human life.
Having said that, we DO NOT BELIEVE IN ARTIFICIALLY PROLONGING the process of dying. We will not start a feeding rube, IV lines, and/or respirators when it is clear our efforts will not restore a patient to meaningful interactive life and their wishes in that regard can be ascertained or inferred. Furthermore, we will remove a feeding tube, IV lines, and/or respirators when it is clear our endeavors will not restore a patient to meaningful interactive life and we are certain as to their wishes in that regard. We do not maintain patients in a "Persistent Vegetative State" unless demanded by family, or the earlier expressed desires of the patient. We strongly recommend against the futile use of medical technology and inappropriate resuscitative ("Code Blue") efforts.
In all our dealings with patients, their dignity will be protected and, to the extent possible, their pain will be relieved, even at the risk of hastening their death.