Rathwell-Deault Dominick, Godard Béatrice, Frank Diane, Ravel André, Doizé Béatrice
Faculté de médecine vétérinaire, Département de sciences cliniques, Université de Montréal, 3200 rue Sicotte, Saint Hyacinthe, Québec J2S 2M2.
Can Vet J. 2017 Sep;58(9):953-963.
Many veterinarians working in the field of companion animal medicine have to deal with requests for convenience euthanasia in their practices. As it is the case in other medical fields, veterinarians are trained to treat their patients. It is thus easy to understand that veterinarians consider convenience euthanasia as one of the most difficult ethical dilemmas they have to deal with in their practice. Regulatory boundaries concerning the practice of euthanasia are limited to the method use to induce the death of the animal but do not give any indication as to what should be the proper circumstances surrounding the request. To date, there are few articles on this matter and the perspective of veterinarians on the subject was rarely addressed. This article reports results obtained following a study conducted upon Québec's veterinarians on the topic of convenience euthanasia. The data was obtained via an online survey created by the research team to evaluate the perspective of veterinarians on the topic, how they perceived consequences of convenience euthanasia and what were the solutions they would take into consideration in order to help the profession on resolving their dilemma. The data collected sheds light on the existing duality between double allegiance regarding the duties emerging from the relation with the patient (animal) and the client (pet owner) veterinarian are facing in their daily practice. On one hand veterinarians recognized that 'convenience euthanasia' is contrary to animal welfare. On the other hand they also recognized the pet owner's right to ask for 'convenience euthanasia' when he can no longer care for its pet.(Translated by Dr. Rathwell-Deault).
许多从事伴侣动物医学领域工作的兽医在其执业过程中不得不应对安乐死的请求。与其他医学领域的情况一样,兽医接受的是治疗患者的培训。因此,很容易理解兽医将安乐死视为他们在执业过程中必须面对的最困难的伦理困境之一。关于安乐死实施的监管界限仅限于用于导致动物死亡的方法,但对于请求安乐死的适当情形却未给出任何指示。迄今为止,关于这个问题的文章很少,兽医在这个问题上的观点也很少被提及。本文报告了对魁北克兽医就安乐死这一主题进行研究后所获得的结果。数据是通过研究团队创建的在线调查获得的,以评估兽医对该主题的看法、他们如何看待安乐死的后果以及他们会考虑哪些解决方案来帮助该行业解决他们的困境。收集到的数据揭示了兽医在日常执业中面临的与患者(动物)和客户(宠物主人)关系所产生的职责方面存在的双重忠诚的二元性。一方面兽医认识到“安乐死”违背动物福利。另一方面,他们也承认当宠物主人无法再照顾其宠物时,有要求“安乐死”的权利。(由拉特韦尔 - 德奥尔特博士翻译)