A doctor who admitted helping a leukemia patient commit suicide was cleared of misconduct charges Friday by a state health board.
A three-member panel of the Board for Professional Medical Conduct ruled that the actions of Dr. Timothy Quill were "legal and ethically appropriate."Quill, an internist at Genesee Hospital in Rochester, wrote in the March 7 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine that he had prescribed barbiturates for a 45-year-old patient and made sure she knew how many pills to take to kill herself.
The woman decided to commit suicide rather than undergo chemotherapy, which would have given her only a 25 percent chance of survival, Quill said.
A Monroe County grand jury last month cleared Quill of any criminal responsibility in the woman's death.
The state health board found that Quill's prescribing the barbiturates was not inappropriate because "he could not know with certainty what use a patient might make of the drugs he has prescribed."
A doctor cannot force a patient to use any prescription in one particular way, the board said. "Ultimately, these are decisions left to the patients," it said.
Quill said he was pleased by the board's statement. "It seemed like a very thoughtful ruling," he said. "I'm glad that aspect is concluded."
The board members said they were not condoning "so-called assisted suicide."