Showing posts with label William Reichel MD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Reichel MD. Show all posts

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Board Member William Reichel, M.D.

Below is an updated biography for Choice is an Illusion Board Member, William Reichel MD.

As noted below, he was recently named as one of five Pioneers in Geriatric Medicine.  Thank you for your work Dr. Reichel!


image of Dr. ReichelWilliam Reichel, M.D.

William Reichel, M.D. is Vice President and a Board member of Choice is an Illusion.  He is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University School of Medicine. Dr. Reichel received his M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1961. His residency in Internal Medicine was at Stanford Medical Center. He provided leadership in Geriatrics, serving 13 years on the Board of Directors of the American Geriatrics Society, including serving as its President. He was recently named as one of five Pioneers in Geriatric Medicine.  The 6th Edition of a Cambridge University Press text, "Reichel's Care of the Elderly: Clinical Aspects of Aging," was released in February 2009, and the 7th Edition is in preparation.

In his practice, Dr. Reichel saw the many ethical dilemmas that occur in patient care. He thus pursued a study of ethics, at first at Georgetown in 1984, and then as a Visiting Scholar in Medical Ethics at Harvard Divinity School, 1988-1990. At Harvard Divinity School, he concentrated on euthanasia, both in Germany before and during World War II, and in the Netherlands, publishing on assisted suicide and euthanasia. In 1998, Dr. Reichel was appointed to the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown where he continued his scholarly work that included the study of assisted suicide and euthanasia. Now retired from practice, Dr. Reichel continues as an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for Clinical Bioethics and he continues to participate in the public debate against legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. His commentaries in letters to the editor have been published throughout the United States, in Canada, the UK and New Zealand. For example, click here.

William Reichel MD: Dutch law allows euthanasia

Originally published in The Advocate, the Official Publication of the Idaho State Bar, October 2010.
http://www.margaretdore.com/info/October_Letters.pdf
        
I am a physician who has studied assisted-suicide and euthanasia since 1988, especially in the Netherlands.  I respond to Margaret Dore's article, which quotes me for the proposition that those who believe that legal euthanasia and/or assisted suicide will assure their "choice," are naive.  ("Aid in Dying: Not Legal in Idaho; Not About Choice").  The quote is accurate....

In the Netherlands, Dutch law calls for performing euthanasia and assisted suicide with the patient's consent.  This is not, however, always done.  Indeed, over time, assisted-suicide on a strictly voluntary basis evolved into allowing euthanasia on an involuntary basis.  Euthanasia is also performed on infants and children, who are not capable of giving consent.

2005 is the most recent year for which we have an official report from the Dutch government.  The report is "spun" to defend its law, but nonetheless concedes that 550 patients (an average of 1.5 per day) were actively killed by Dutch doctors "without an explicit request."  The report also concedes that an additional 20% of deaths were not reported to the authorities as required by Dutch law.
        
 [Proponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia] hold . . . out the carrot of  "choice" to induce the public into believing that [these practices] are somehow benign.  Do not be misled.

William Reichel, M.D.
Affiliated Scholar
Center for Clinical Bioethics
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Washington DC