This Nexus provides background information about assistance in dying. The international perspective based on developments in Western Europe, especially the Netherlands, provides a useful context in which to place events in the United States. Part II considers the history and legal context of assistance in dying in the United States. Oregon is given special attention because it remains the only state with legally sanctioned assistance in dying. Readers are urged to bear in mind the definitions and distinctions among assisted dying, the various forms of euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Informed observers of the discussion will readily see that the terms and concepts are often used imprecisely and as though they are synonymous. Productive debate of assistance in dying will occur only if all those involved agree on definitions and the meaning of the concepts.
Knowing and applying the basic management functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling, as well as their permutations and combinations, are vital to effective delivery of public health services. Presently, graduate programs that prepare public health professionals neither emphasize teaching management theory, nor its application. This deficit puts those who become managers in public health and those they serve at a distinct disadvantage. This deficit can be remedied by enhanced teaching of management subjects.
Hospital boards and executives must resist the pressure to become all things health in the community. Hospital executives must educate their boards about the importance of concentrating on their core business and avoiding entangling and potentially risky ventures in peripheral and unrelated activities. They can and should participate in community health initiatives, but such efforts should, at most, be incidental to delivery of acute care services. The Drucker quote at the beginning of this column should be a warning to all who would venture even a short distance from their core business.
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