Euthanasia Interview Questions?

[altaskier]

Hi all, I've been to a couple of interviews and have had really no euthanasia questions. I'm gonna be interviewing at Albany and from what i've read i know they liked to drill you on ethical quesitons. I know a lot of you have been asked about euthanasia though. What have the interviewers asked you? How did you respond? Just wanted to get a good sense of what it might be like.

Thanks all

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[deleted7807]

My euthanasia questions have all been "So what do you think about euthanasia". I then give my opinion, and then they asked me to describe the opposing point of view. Then they asked me to validate myself in response to the opposing point of view.

Kind of annoying, but if you know the issue overall (broadly) and where you stand, then you will be fine.

 

[Gi]

Originally posted by altaskier:
•Hi all, I've been to a couple of interviews and have had really no euthanasia questions. I'm gonna be interviewing at Albany and from what i've read i know they liked to drill you on ethical quesitons. I know a lot of you have been asked about euthanasia though. What have the interviewers asked you? How did you respond? Just wanted to get a good sense of what it might be like.

Thanks all•••

I've worked at Hospice for the last couple years so a euthanasia question was pretty inevitable for me. I was asked about how a felt about certain PAS and euthanasia senerios and then they added more and more info as I answered to see if I could hold ground. I was also asked how I felt about the Netherlands laws and Oregon's law on PAS. I think in any ethical senerio there is no right or wrong answer. They seem to be looking for someone who 1. knows how they feel (and can show they've thought about it) and 2. is still open minded. Check out some ethics websites (UW is good) and if you do a search on euth. laws, a million things will come up. Good luck!

 

[altaskier]

Gi,

I was wondering what scenario they exactly asked you about Euthanasia and how you responded? Did you get any abortion questions?

Thanks

 

[Gi]

Originally posted by altaskier:
•Gi,

I was wondering what scenario they exactly asked you about Euthanasia and how you responded? Did you get any abortion questions?

Thanks•••

I got an abortion question during our pre-health advisory committee meetings. They asked, on a scale from 1 to 10, how I felt about abortion. Had this changed since high school? And what I would do if my religous feelings differed from what a patient wanted (kind of applies to a lot of fields). Mostly, they said they were looking to see that I was open minded to other's beliefs and willing to still help those with options I didn't believe in.

As far as euthanasia questions, I've had a lot and the discussion would be hard to repeat (due to length). It was more dialog than questions just shot at me. One interviewer asked me to pick one topic in medicine that is contraversal to talk about; so I picked euthanasia b/c I can talk about it. We talked about the cases where babies that are born with down's syndrome and intestinal blockage and are made comfortable and left to die. Intestinal blockage is easy to fix, the surgery is done in healthy infants all the time. So is it right to leave children w/ down's to die if the parents do not opt to have the surgery? Also, some people take it farther by saying, "Yep, we should let them die. But starving is inhuman, so we should give them a lethal injection." So at Colorado we talked about that and the moral obligation of the doctor to save patients as well as who pays if the parents refuse.

There is a book called The Social Medicine Reader (edited by Henderson, King, Strauss, Estroff, and Churchill). It's a collection of essays of a variety of topics. Awesome source and offers both sides of an issue. I also have a book called Bioethics, edited by Kuhse and Singer. I had to buy this one for a class. It's more of a philosopher's approach if that's what you're looking for. I hope this helps you out. Talking to people prepared my better than anything. If you can get with someone who will drill you and then play the antagonist, that might help you prepare for a tough interview as well. Again, the UW web site is great and offers cases and the "correct" thing to do (according to them). Best of luck to you.
~Gi