Physicians' willingness to participate in the process of lethal injection for capital punishment

Background: It has been found that physicians condone colleague involvement in capital punishment. Physicians' own willingness to participate has not been explored. Objective: To examine physicians' willingness to be involved in cases of ca pital punishment. Design: Survey exploring physicians' willingness to participate in 10 aspec ts of capital punishment by lethal injection, 8 of which are disallowed by the American Medical Association. Setting: United States. Participants: 1000 randomly selected practicing physicians. Measurements: Questions assessing willingness to be involved in and attitud es toward capital punishment Results: 41% of respondents indicated that they would perform at least one action disallowed by the American Medical Association; 25% would perform fi ve or more disallowed actions. Perceived duty to society (P < 0.001), appro val of the death penalty (P < 0.001), and approval of assisted suicide (P = 0.015) correlated with increased willingness to perform disallowed actions . Only 3% of respondents knew of any guidelines on this issue. Conclusions: Despite medical society policies, many physicians would be wil ling to be involved in the execution of adults. The medical profession need s to be better informed about the ethical issues involved in physician part icipation in capital punishment.