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Eric Fish, DVM's avatar

Wholeheartedly agree. I view euthanasia as a professional obligation, a terrible necessity, and also a gift: the gift of a smooth exit from this plane of existence to the next. There are few things worse than screwing that up and adding suffering in the final moments. If one wants to see what euthanasia without appropriate medical care looks like, take a look at how often it goes grievously wrong in prisons with lethal injection. As physicians have essentially boycotted assisting with the death penalty (separate conversation), executions are carried out by people without medical training who often don’t know what to do when things go awry, and the descriptions of some of those botched cases are harrowing. I don’t feel great about convicted murderers going through that, and I *certainly* would never want innocent animals to experience a fraction of that torture

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Timothy J Ireland, VMD's avatar

We know that the shortage of trained professionals in clinical practice makes it necessary to change the way we do things. Title protection and defined scope of practice for licensed techs that differs from that of our unlicensed assistants, I feel, is a critical part of the equation.

I would whole heatedly oppose allowing licensed techs to perform euthanasia (plus a long list of other services/procedures) in clinic or at home on a patient and for an owner who have not been previously approved for euthanasia by a licensed veterinarian.

As much as I hate euthanasia, I do believe it is often (not always) better for both patient and family if it can be performed outside the walls of a veterinary facility. If I have discussed the situation with the owner and had an opportunity to assess the patient (we schedule quality of life assessments, not euthanasia appointments unless they have already had a recent QoL assessment and a vet signed off on the decision to euthanize), I would love for my licensed techs to be able to go out to a patient rather than having them dragged in to see me.

I try to accommodate in home euthanasia when I can but when we are turning away patients in need every day, it's hard to justify taking a vet off the floor to do a house call.

I don't know how Lap of Love handles their cases but I always squirm when a patient I have never seen before wants to come to me for their final visit. When they used to get scheduled as a euthanasia appointment it was MUCH more uncomfortable talking them out of it than it is when their are scheduled for a QoL assessment because the client understands that I haven't agreed to perform the procedure yet.

We know we can't keep doing things the way we have been doing them. Doing things differently will require some legislative changes. I personally would not oppose this one asing as the procedure is approved after an in person exam by a licensed vet who signed off on the need for the procedure. Currently in my state, a licensed tech can't even euthanize patients in my facility. I live 15 min away and have had patients suffer longer than the would have if I could have approved it over the phone.

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