THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997              TAG: 9701310005
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                            LENGTH:   26 lines

VETO PHYSICIAN-ASSISTED SUICIDE

I strongly disagree with Theodore Wolf's Another View (Jan. 19) regarding physician-assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide may be a proper subject for public debate, but the public should not assume that their physicians are to be automatically co-opted by their wishes.

The sanctity of human life is a concept and tradition that antedates the birth of Christ, and a doctrine that physicians swear to maintain. To depart from that tradition would be a dangerous precedent which the overwhelming majority of physicians oppose. We can see many scenarios where this change would be eagerly embraced by groups whose primary loyalty would not be to the patient.

Contrary to our past tradition of patient loyalty and advocacy, the general public should not assume that in these days of ``bottom-line medicine,'' all physicians will be strong enough to resist the sometimes subtle and often heavy-handed efforts of third parties to affect patient outcomes to that party's material gain and the patient's detriment.

CLARKE RUSS, M.D.

Virginia Beach, Jan. 19, 1997