A Word on Words; 2623; Steven Snodgrass

i know i'm just a bill once again welcome to world words our guest stephen sondheim has a booked lethal both welcomed opportunity words free shaving your outreach anand and you are a doctor indeed you are you are a vascular surgeon general vascular surgeon that's correct and the book is lethal dose and it's about a controversial subject or euthanized it right now i guess what's not is let's listen original ideas into the garden where as you know orders of of euthanasia first of all our first thought about this project when i was a resident chief resident general surgery and i thought when abby was their residency program and euthanasia

because i thought it was a unique fascinating story and i think we as physicians we have a lot of stories to tell we see a lot of triumphant a lot of tragedy and i thought this would be a great story and so i just let my imagination run with it it started to write it as a screenplay actually but they're going back to look more like a novel austin well i'm just going to keep winning novel for now you're a first time author yasser and and and i'm i'm fascinated by by a couple things first top bunk it took some courage for a doctor to really you know weighed in on the subject i know that the n o lit them both the ama on one side and a lot of it on the other that position that that this is a valuable book i guess it's because it really makes us think seriously about a subject we don't want to think about right i think it's is the most

fascinating compelling controversial so good it faces our society today and i think we're all going to have to vote on this issue i think oregon is only the beginning and it's sort of been legalizing get williston i was the celestial little bit lower in just sort of allow that help put into context the thing and the thing the little one thing i did once i was it like like you were mentioning i wanted to get a point counterpoint because the book is neither pro or con that allows the view or the operator to make up his or her own mind which i think is vitally important because that's what they're going to do in the voting booth and so what i wanted to give blurbs put on the cover us and who can i get on and on doctor doctor todd who was then the year prison american medical association as a boy who's gonna be a the antithesis of that and not at all to measure their comfort who founded the hemlock society and wrote fireworks in both man enjoy the book and both from what i wrote

wonderful comments about the book so one other point counterpoint as the show to readers that i was giving us a fair about what you know of and an end and it comes at only a context of love of legal controversies that are that man known as dr beth i mean so is so the show i said you wade into the waters of controversy it is at best an understatement but i congratulate you know you give us something too to really think about and worry about like yeah i think it when you go back to it even though the book is in the cell sits in the middle i think that the bookers serve as a blueprint because it does have a panel of objective compassionate physicians who look at each case and allows the reader to step inside that world of the world that i think the readers never have entered an allows them to get in the shoes of the doctors patients nurses and even the terrorists who comes after the doctor yes i think it allows and to see things and a way they've never looked at them before and that if it is controversial is no question about

it and when you go to doctor kevorkian when you mention him out i think that is one person and i think if anything you could say yes he's bringing this issue that an ad for debate but i think one person mike and those kinds of decisions if you can i get in a lot of dangerous territory there because some of his patients in nottingham pathologic diagnosis though the way it is im a button that can of the problem i think the chance the potential for abuse is really lesson because the panel approach let's talk about about the listeners weighed into jeff's world being being near your hero jeff being i am a young doctor who suffered the skiing accident rack found that the his dream of you in one form of work and feel a lesson for life shattered

and therefore goes into those quote new for you right he's a pioneer and he's a bit of a pioneering spirit he loves surgery he lives to operate and he loves to operate and went skiing accident in his mind takes away his ability to be a hundred percent he goes and anesthesiology and we watch as other people operate drives him crazy so he's he decides that he's getting going to euthanasia which is just been legalized which into which in europe fictional world as is billy lot that's right then and dr rick off his oath love mentor it has been a columnist they've been pretty well the dr rogoff is a very powerful force an inch of flight because he's the stump he has this clinic center a color riley's that he's the father figure for the three new euthanasia is because they don't know what it's out when i come into this medical specialty all of a sudden they're thrust in the limelight because

they're the first legalized euthanasia department in the world and all the sudden any decision they make any time that they sneeze they're gearing up to a lot of media attention and that sort of thing and sell the book delves into was alive for these doctors who were once curing patients now they're actually making life and death decisions and if they decide to do the procedure they are killing of patience and so it's a it's a quite a bizarre world for them well i you know universally innocence super lot with the car sitting in the car when a bomb goes all right and he's an amusing about what the world would be like i mean we've got problems of the abortion clinics in and their protests is out there and that has prompted this construction and all that is conjured up in our minds as we as we read briefly about about those police officer and the next thing you notice

when sheila court gave the moment and you take us from lapsing into the into just life oh where he's about is about to administer lethal doses literary goes into an and he's distracted by me you know with the back of a bomb's vincent and our fake bombs been sent to the quiet too so he's got that on his mind so there's a lot of attachments he is mind a swirling because he's he's in a totally new field there's this whole thing is just want him it's overcome him and he knows that he's actually going to be killing this patient and so you'd get into gs ski and you see what that's like and actually i have a lot of discussions between jeff and his wife who's a psychology in bright and that so they said down la times a dinner allow a deep conversations about this whole topic and i think that that's one thing that the book will do i think you in a tiny number was asked at tanger haven't done my job but it also has to

enlighten people on has to put them in that war a way it never been before and so i you know this is here this is now euthanasia is actually legal in oregon and lookit what could happen and i think that the knowledge is a very powerful tool and i think reading this book will entertain you but it will also enlightened educated us empower people to make an informed decision regarding euthanasia you know one of the shocking things that new office just go very early all is that but sometimes publishing houses don't have all the distribution of books lay him and all the other studios sometimes massive book of these sometimes there as a direct mail from the publisher to the bookstore and that's alabama and the result is that people like you go around the girl

programs like this to promote the book in the line up in the town of long haul lethal dose you're there but lethal doses been left somewhere behind the editor it's like oh yeah i it's the business of of books is incredible asset and i wrote this book the first rough draft was complete in nineteen ninety one and that it took me six years to find a publisher and get the whole thing done it so i more hair he's just joining the business aspect of it and so the book is just now being wildly distributed throughout the united states is not in a bookstore so if you if you go there they can be order from a bookstore in the world there's been more distribute in canada as the united states as louis because the average canadian potions iran through all and so to have been here in the united states it's surges numbing while itch but you know it is it is an issue then

and within less location the meanness has virtually blanket the first world bought but the whole world is literally what the whole medical world is literally watching oregon now as a result of both of their vote they sure aren't in the thing about it is judge rehnquist he said this is an issue that though will not and should not be decided by the supreme court judges this is something nice to be brought before the american people and each individual in each individual state should b the law is society should make a lot rarer than the lawmaking society and so it is a societal problem and i think a lot of times people don't think about it but the baby boomers are getting older their parents are getting older and something that i think they were and we're gonna have to address nothing lethal dose tackles a subject you know well ahead on is that is the term for it i mean you know let's go back for a for a momentous so that so that the sonar of viewers listeners can still get a sense of a

love bug of this sort of this underworld bump dr rudolph is there when this first time this occurred right bump and there is there has to be a witness their full of us is happy that its junior who come to the sun are as opposed to one of the one of a lot of the patients almost a victim when one of the patients the panel has already made the decision you might talk a little bit about that because as you suggest in jolene explore various facets of it and it's interestingly how use the dialogue of the other characters in the plot to introduce us and educators in the controversy

and it's not your narrative it is their narrative but what the panel described how the panel goes about making a decision what factors come into play and and and and how you determine that a terminal illness quote term will this is indeed a terminally ill and there in that one case that this presented there is a pharmacist named mike staten than the safeway has a cancer that's never static and he his wife he's been a person who's been very bad day she sees he's enjoyed his life he's enjoyed his family and is that the point where there can no longer be an in the patient's own mind he no longer exist like he did before he was a man who had a lot of control of his own lives he was a korean war veteran and now he wants to be more in control of his death and he asked his son actually a fifth son would which yelling and it was so there's a lot of discussion then

i do like virginia and they had really little oh yeah so it is a very very tough question because he's known as that is loved is that in and now he's got a watch is that suffer not be the man that it was anymore and so when the euthanasia fellowship becomes legal they become the first people involved in that and what the panel does is the day will go through with a fine tooth comb on the patients know what he's been doing up to this time i'm a doctor z saying they will actually have a pathological diagnosis of the cancer they'll know where it is that the x ray singh no word spread and they will base their opinions on their prior experiences as a physician to say about more the likely this is the this is a case that there's going to be no coming back from there will be pain there will be suffering the patient feels himself losing dignity and control so we feel like he's an appropriate candidate and out what they do i got this information from the

ticket taxes institute of prisons as a matter of fact the way called fight tucker was they use the lethal injection which is fail proof because circuit has three drug combinations was called sodium foul pen pal would put you to sleep the others paint uranium bromide which will rest the most of the respiration and in the test in or i was stopped the hearts was a painless death and it's a quick death and that's the way that mr staton is that dealt with in this book you know let me take you to a video of the joys of doing this program with all those like huge is set to win every book almost i learn something i didn't know and in many cases regularly know i learned regulated no year was one of the things i didn't know that i learned was what woody guthrie

that i mean i was a great admirer of music behind his career earnings korea and i've never heard of huntington's korea until i was induced was the ugly list of me is a news to jeff talk let's talk about that case later on in the story mr al is using an alias there's really michael chang like a chain is that look like a rhea and mr utley goes into the euthanasia ward and that he's going up and the ovaries me as a lamp explain the vote but that he tells jeff during the interview that is records have not been forwarded yet he beat his records to the hospital he was to go over of the euthanasia process in and see the layout of a clinic and that sort of thing and he just yesterday as the huntington's korea which is essentially like a muscle wasting type of fire of death and that we can become so quiet

and dignified and mr owens opinion he does not want to face that fight and so jeff understands why he's there and that but he looks awfully good he likes to do and let's go back now to love to be with my car and i have to ask you where this villain came from where in them in the imagination of a vascular surgeon well i don't call me sick and it was a wonderful bill and it isn't it is a marvelous portrait of the well and evil of an evil genius really is an evil genius and and what i wanted to do with him was the number one he used to be a priest apologized repeatedly tell lost it there but the thing about it is he still wears a scholar and it gives him instant credibility but if you go back and look through a lot of the psychiatric books which i did know i went back and looked at a lot

of my abnormal psychology books psychiatric case was a medical student and you would classify mike of the paranoid schizophrenia but he's one of those can i guess he feels that he has to take it on himself to stop this in a daily beast i asked to stop you the lead up to and asia and he's on a one man mission and he's one of those guys i have always been interested in that like why would people kill people to save people that that sort of mentality and and mike as mining and what i want to in my research that he takes it upon himself and he destroys the flesh then he say's the souls so he thinks that he is saving the souls of the people that he's killing including like the possible patients for euthanasia quite and he himself targets the doctors and the end of the book and so the doctors become hundred pray and you know there is a lot of our society right now on another issue to abortion that

we know that there are bombings and we know that they're shooting and we know that there are doctors there are medical doctors ms rizzo of performing abortions are targeted they do come and pray in real life so it's not it's aged in the book is fiction in the book is a novel and it's a wonderful story and it's an absurd dozen grateful and it will make a great screenplay in a great movie but i must say it i think that they you know that the inescapable reality is that society does face area and in some ways a day of its toughest possible political decision that we ultimately unify and then chief justice rehnquist assad that that that that trend here will follow the same route of mean the same result as a girl

i think the result is a know how people feel about this outside our news still allow that has not even been olden much debt but what if we go back to the abortion early days of the last abortion without states began really live and new york for example i remember i'll go here for occasionally lou reed a minister i know who was escorting three four five young women new york for where abortions were legal and then blogging roe v wade and the nation had legalized abortion and what i'm wondering is whether we will have what we will have another state or two a three a four following oregon and then find that the supreme court despite the chief justices refused to the contrary is forced to make some decision about custer county health of the issues even though they are it's not one thing i know it may very well come to

that because it's so controversial i think iran think it really leads abortion and that's where i think it's more about our values more controversial thing it's the most controversial issue that we will face because were talking about having alive in the brain that we can look at and see right here and actually killing that person and i think that or again as a lot of the a lot of trouble what i singing i just looked at some of their criteria where they're talking about a person must have thought six months or less to live in and there's no doctor in the world i can tell you how long you have to weigh in as he can find somebody tells you yes it's muscle will find out his topics to hear it just doesn't exist and also say they give oral medication and if you give oral medication that we sing botched suicides and things like that were people have prompted as failsafe right and they've been in a coma they are actually worse off for them when they started and so if it's if it's going to be done if this is going to be done i think that

it's got to be done like it is in the book and the other thing to another argument are saying that's so prevalent as people say why what the family doctor do it and you know i've talked to family doctors family practitioners all over the united states now and not one had said that they would administer a lethal dose of medication to a patient and when you look at really get like myself i'm a gen vascular surgeon i feel like it's my job to heal patients an hour i'd do everything i can to make sure that happens so i think that it's wrong to ask someone who's trying to heal to come in and actually kill that patient because for example is if a family doctor kills grandmother and then he has to give that into the rest of family members held get through the funeral and then family members from generations on how they don't feel going to that doctor knowing what he did to their grandmother you know it's the mud that many people are facing go in in hospital waiting rooms all over this country now there are

patients who don't have a living will and who are not going to recover and they are lingering and the families are there looking at the physician saying tell us when the ballpark and and so it'd so as farfetched as good as they have as the idea of lethal dose may seem when you picked the book up once you begin to read and bp you get into the story the more of something you've heard recently ranger bell and you know that you're in a real life a real death situation that that make confront you politically and medically and personally very soon and the thing about it is though the hmo of if you look at the hmo industry it goes hand in hand with euthanasia

correll really does because you get into an economic bottom line and i had to deal with several hmo since i've been a surgeon and now that i find it interesting but not one time not one time that what these people they've asked me how's the patient now one time i actually have a person who had been trampled by a bull who had a collapsed long who had their blood in the chest or liver the patient that was near death and in the operating room and fortunately he survived his accident but twenty four hours after the yeah actually i got a phone call from his hmo saying this patient should be discharged from the hospital nsa were our union issue were minnesota as suleiman and a kentucky so you off while now have a look at the sparse so you look at atlanta mentality and look at the unusual is thing the bomb london saying doma last clue as quickly as you can and you still a lawyer without fighting for his life is about a surprise a lot

of the story with a happy ending in the know say well your story has a happy ending of it i think there is italian human rights is the widow henry's reputation and lived but it is a very real sense of drama only intended for it they're bred to be the way i want to be an entertaining book because i was see it as a failed then and i started to write it as a failed and if you know i can move your mouse you know walk out at any film it has an idf they'll go the idea that they've really no go how in the world the front of the riot i mean i know how busy doctors are animal are busy you must be in a million years walk into a waiting room which i did just a few days ago with a little bizarre my eye and and you know look the the pressure work has enormous power and a defiant underwriters

and i you know i don't know a classic insomniac there was no requirement sleep and this story for some reason the story just had to come out is something that i felt very passionate about it's something that i felt like the head to do it and and i started writing it in a fan to be a very positive outlook for me it made me forget a lot about the real world problems and put me in situations where i can actually be creative and islam on my generation lived in and i didn't know the one case about the you know the person who had this diving board accident that case bothered me that case get me up and i don't like what i did this during the day only case really bothered me and i think it's probably the most emotional case in the book you go to dig in your model i've got about a hundred pages written on the second book but i really working on marketing his first one because i want to see this one to love

no i