Should physicians administer lethal drugs? Reconsidering the professional role of medicine: a response to Barker <i>et al</i>

Barker et al argue that physicians should not administer lethal drugs within assisted dying legislation and propose that this function should instead be assigned to a distinct professional role, the ‘assisted dying practitioner’. Their argument rests on the claim that the central goal of medicine is cure or disease prevention, whereas assisted dying aims at facilitating death. Because these goals are conceptually incompatible, they conclude that physician participation in assisted dying would undermine the professional identity of medicine. This commentary examines the philosophical and practical assumptions underlying that argument. While the authors make an important contribution by distinguishing between the legal permissibility of assisted dying and the question of who should carry it out, their analysis relies on a relatively narrow account of the goals of medicine. Classical accounts of medical ethics emphasise that medicine involves not only curing disease but also caring for patients, relieving suffering and supporting individuals when a cure is no longer possible. Contemporary end-of-life care illustrates this broader understanding of medical practice. Decisions to withdraw life-sustaining treatments and the use of palliative sedation show that the aims of medicine may legitimately shift from disease modification to the relief of suffering in advanced illness. Although these practices are ethically distinct from assisted dying, they suggest that a strictly curative definition of medicine is insufficient to capture the full scope of medical responsibility in end-of-life care.