Which form of end-of-life practice involves a doctor providing the means for a patient to end their own life?

• A. Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)
• B. Passive Euthanasia
• C. Physician Assisted Suicide
• D. Hospice

Answer: (C)

The concept being tested here is the distinction between end-of-life practices based on who provides the means for ending life and who administers it. The form where a doctor provides the means for a patient to end their own life is physician-assisted suicide. In this arrangement, the physician supplies something lethal (often a prescription) that the patient self-administers. The patient makes the final move themselves, not the doctor.

This differs from passive euthanasia, where life-sustaining treatment is withheld or withdrawn, allowing natural death to occur without the doctor providing a means to end life. DNR is simply a directive about not performing resuscitation if the heart or breathing stops, not about enabling death. Hospice focuses on comfort and support for the patient and family, without pursuing actions to end life.