
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994                    TAG: 9406150478 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B1    EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: 940615                                 LENGTH: RALEIGH

GROUP OF PHYSICIANS PROTESTS REQUIREMENT THAT A DOCTOR BE ON HAND AT

{LEAD} A group of North Carolina doctors say they'll ask the state Legislature to remove a requirement that physicians participate in executions.

``The problem with this, as we see it, is that the law stands in direct violation of prevailing professional ethics,'' said spokesman Dr. Jeffrey Sonis, a family medicine instructor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's medical school.

{REST} ``Every major medical association in the world which has looked at this issue - including the AMA and N.C. Medical Society - has declared that physician participation in executions is completely unethical, unprofessional and incompatible with the role of a physician.''

State law requires that a physician be present at an execution to issue a death certificate.

The group, through its lawyer, on Monday sent a letter to the state Department of Correction, advising officials of the conflict and asking that a physician not participate in this morning's execution of convicted killer David Lawson.

Another letter went to the state medical examiners board, requesting that North Carolina-licensed doctors be advised of the conflict, as well as the fact they could be sanctioned if they participate in executions.

The group joins a national movement that seeks to release not only doctors from monitoring executions, but also other health care professionals. Now, 29 states require doctors to monitor executions.

At Lawson's execution in Central Prison's gas chamber in Raleigh, the prison's medical director will monitor Lawson's heart beats on an electrocardiogram, said Correction Department spokesman Patty McQuillan.

``The doctor's only role is to officially pronounce the condemned person dead,'' said Correction Department Secretary Franklin Freeman. ``That's his only purpose and we're carrying out the letter of the law. . . . But the physician is not an executioner.''

The group of doctors disagrees.

They cite cases where a prisoner survives a first attempt at execution.

``The physician who is monitoring vital signs is in a sense giving a tacit order to continue an execution,'' Sonis told The Charlotte Observer. ``That makes him a surrogate executioner.''

{KEYWORDS} CAPITAL PUNISHMENT PHYSICIAN DOCTOR by CNB