preview

Who Is Fundus Oculi And The Determination Of Death?

Better Essays

Another big advocate for the legal right to die with dignity is Jack Kevorkian also known as ‘doctor death’, he created a sort of stigma for physician assisted death. He was an outspoken figure that brought to the forefront a serious arising problem that hadn’t been discussed in such an open setting. Just for a little basis on his background and credentials, he graduated from Michigan University medical school with a specialty in pathology. In 1956, four years after graduating, he published his first article “The Fundus Oculi and the Determination of Death.” This article discussed his practice of photographing the eyes of patient’s before they died, this earned him his nickname ‘Doctor Death.’ With his unorthodox practices he changed many laws in the Michigan Legislature. He was claimed to have assisted in more than 130 terminally ill patients suicides through 1990 to 1998. He served eight years for second-degree murder after injecting a patient with a lethal does himself.
Kevorkian had his first successful assisted suicide on June 4, 1990. Her name was Janet Atkins a 54 year old English teacher with Alzheimer’s disease. She first heard of the apparent suicide machine from an episode of the Donahue show. The machine distributed saline solution, and sodium thiopental into the patients’ blood stream. This puts the patient into a deep sleep like coma and for the final reaction. A lethal dose of potassium chloride that stops the heart. This machine was the work and brainchild

Get Access