Maryland has stripped the medical license from a doctor who allegedly assisted the suicides of six Marylanders who were not terminally ill.
The Maryland Board of Physicians revoked the license of anesthesiologist Lawrence Egbert for unprofessional actions and for breaking a state law against participating in a suicide.
Egbert was part of a national right-to-die organization called the Final Exit Network, which offers assistance to terminally ill patients who desire to commit suicide.
"It is undisputed that Dr. Egbert participated in six suicides in the state of Maryland as either a Senior Exit Guide or as a members-only exit guide," the Maryland Board of Physicians said in its findings.
Egbert, who has assisted in hundreds of suicide around the country, allegedly helped six Maryland resident who weren't terminally ill commit suicide and then took action to make the deaths appear natural on death certificates, state health officials said.
Documents released the state Board of Officials suggest in one case Egbert assisted an 85-year-old woman with diabetes, heart disease and a history of depression in a suicide so that she could leave sufficient money in a trust for her son, who is diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
The woman's death certificate lists heart failure as the cause of death.
The board's report said Egbert participated in six suicides between 2004 and 2008 in which the patients were not categorized as "terminally ill," expected to die within 6 months.
All were members of the Final Exit Network, headquartered in Florida, which provides a book describing how to commit suicide using a bag or hood over the head that is then filled with helium.
Egbert personally attended in each case and held his patients' hands; both for comfort and to ensure they didn't remove the helium-filled hoods they put over their heads following the network's instructions, the report said.
The suicide paraphernalia was subsequently disposed of to remove incriminating evidence and to make the death appear natural, the board's report said.
Egbert has also faced charges of assisting suicide in Georgia and Arizona; he was acquitted in Arizona while Georgia dropped the charges after the state's Supreme Court in 2012 overturned a law which ha d limited assisted suicide.
He is also awaiting trial in Minnesota on charges of assisting a suicide.
The issue of assisted suicide was a subject of much public debate when a woman with incurable brain cancer committed suicide in November after moving to Oregon, which has a "death with dignity" law allowing doctors to prescribe medications to end a person's life.
