Medical Assistance in Dying committee  There's no doubt that a competency assessment is part and parcel of every MAID assessment. Doctors do this all the time because we can't do a single service with a patient—we can't do surgery or do psychotherapy or give medications—without permission, and the person must be compe

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you for that question. There are certainly forms of mental illness that are incurable and terminal, and I'm referring here to the dementias. Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia are all going to kill people eventually, so that's certainly one category of psychiatric illness

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  That's a very interesting question as well. I have to tell you that, when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a medical doctor first and a psychiatrist second. The seat of all psychiatric illness is the human brain, which the last time I looked was part of the b

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes. I don't want to be overly enthused or state things that are not true for me, but I think all psychiatrists in Canada have a vigorous training and licensing system. I think any psychiatrist who wants to is competent to do all of those things. We have to assess competency on a

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  As with all patients about whom I'm not certain, I'd get a second opinion. There's nothing that says you have to have only two assessors. I don't do a lot of assessments. The assessments I get involved with involve cases in which there are two assessors and they can't decide on a

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you for that question. Not only do I disagree with it, I think it's preposterous. People who call suicide hotlines may be in a situational adjustment—they've broken up with a loved one in their family or they've been fired from their job. These are not the kinds of patien

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you. This is one of my passions in life. I think we're all facing, unfortunately, a wave of dementia that's going to affect most of the people in this room and on this conference call. With respect to the other issue, competent minors and psychiatric patients, there are

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes, they're part of the functioning of the brain. This is why I think, again, we have this dichotomy between dementia and, say, depression. We understand exactly what dementia is about. We're not quite sure what depression is, but we do know they're both disorders of the brain.