The Patient's Wish to Die

Christoph Rehmann-Sutter is Professor of Theory and Ethics in the Biosciences at the University of Lübeck in Germany and is also a visiting professor at King's College, London. After a diploma in molecular biology, he studied philosophy and sociology. In 1996 he founded the Unit of Bioethics at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and he was president of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics from 2001 to 2009. Current research interests include the anthropology of genomics, the ethics of transplantation of blood stem cells between siblings, and moral issues in end-of-life care. He has published more than 200 scholarly papers. Heike Gudat is physician and specialised in palliative care. Since 2000 she has been the medical head of the HOSPIZ IM PARK, an independent hospital for palliative and end of life care in the region of Basel, Switzerland. After medical education at the University of Basel 1988 she specialised in internal medicine, also experiencing the special fields of rehabilitation, gerontology and hematology. From 1992-1994 studies of experimental cytogenetics at the University of Lübeck (Prof. Ch. Fonatsch), supported by the Swiss National Foundation. Since 1996 specialisation in palliative care. Within regular teaching activities Heike Gudat has a teaching assignment for palliative care at the University of Basel. Together with Settimio Monteverde she developed interdisciplinary palliative care training courses for primary care professionals. Current research interests include wishes to die in end of life care situations and implementation of palliative care in family medicine. Kathrin Ohnsorge is a researcher in bioethics currently working at the HOSPIZ IM PARK, a hospice close to Basel in Switzerland. After her graduation in philosophy, she obtained a European Master in Bioethics from the Universities of Leuven, Nijmengen, Basel and Padua. From 2001 to 2012, she worked at the University of Basel in various research projects regarding ethical issues in end-of-life care. Her current research interests are in ethical issues in end-of-life care and long term care and in narrative and hermeneutic approaches to bioethics. She teaches also bioethics in two postgraduate programs at the University of Padua.

SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION; SECTION TWO: RESEARCH; SECTION THREE: ETHICS; SECTION FOUR: PRACTICE; SECTION FIVE: CONCLUSION