Washington’s for­mer med­ical direc­tor for the Department of Corrections, Dr. Marc Stern, recent­ly resigned from his post because of an ethichal con­flict with his role in super­vis­ing those who car­ried out exe­cu­tions. For exam­ple, the pris­on’s med­ical direc­tor, a nurse, attend­ed at least 8 prac­tice ses­sions with the four-mem­ber lethal-injec­tion team, includ­ing some held on the kitchen coun­ter­top at a team mem­ber’s home. As he left his posi­tion on the eve of a sched­uled exe­cu­tion, Stern for­mal­ly accused the Department of Corrections of ille­gal­ly obtain­ing the lethal-injec­tion drugs and voiced con­cerns over his med­ical staff’s required par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions. As head doc­tor for the state’s pris­ons, he was sur­prised to be told he had to ensure the lethal injec­tion table was in work­ing order before each exe­cu­tion. ​“This is ludi­crous,” Stern remem­bers telling his boss. ​“I can’t do this. I won’t do this. I’m not allowed to do this.” The American Medical Association (AMA) admon­ish­es physi­cians from any direct role with lethal injec­tions, includ­ing ​“an action which would assist, super­vise, or con­tribute to the abil­i­ty of anoth­er indi­vid­ual to direct­ly cause the death of the con­demned.” Stern saw the AMA code as clear cut. This put him into an eth­i­cal bind since the fact that he was ulti­mate­ly account­able for all med­ical pro­ce­dures in the pris­ons meant he was also respon­si­ble for the lethal injec­tion med­ical pro­ce­dures. ​“If a nurse put in an IV and missed, and it turned out the chain of train­ing was bad, that’s my respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Stern said. Since his res­ig­na­tion, a doc­tor who assumed some of his duties has lodged sim­i­lar objec­tions about the involve­ment of Department of Corrections staff in the pro­ce­dures. Washington’s sched­uled exe­cu­tions are tem­porar­i­ly on hold.

(J. Martin, ​“State’s top pris­ons doc­tor quit over exe­cu­tion pol­i­cy,” The Seattle Times, June 23, 2009). See Lethal Injection.

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