Timothy E. Quill is an American physician specialising in

palliative care Palliative care (from Latin root "to cloak") is an interdisciplinary medical care-giving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating or reducing suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Man ...

at the

University of Rochester Medical Center The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), now known as UR Medicine, is located in Rochester, New York, is a medical complex on the main campus of the University of Rochester and comprises the university's primary medical education, resea ...

in Rochester,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. He is also a board member of the

Death with Dignity National Center Death with Dignity National Center is a 501(c)(3) Nonpartisanism, nonpartisan nonprofit organization, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, that has led the legal defense of and education about Assisted suicide, Death with Dignity laws throughout t ...

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. Quill was the lead plaintiff in a case that eventually reached the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

in 1997, '' Vacco v. Quill'', in which the Court decided that a state law against

physician-assisted suicide Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...

was

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

. Quill earned his

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

degree from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

in 1971, and his

M.D. A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of physician. This ge ...

from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1976. In 1991, Quill published an article in ''

The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Founded in 1812, the journal is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals. Its 2023 impact factor w ...

'' describing how he assisted in the suicide of Patricia Diane Trumbull, a 45-year-old

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

patient referred to in the article as "Diane". The report describes how Patricia, a long-time patient of Quill's with an extensive medical history including vaginal cancer, alcoholism and other issues was diagnosed with leukemia but refused

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

. She shortly thereafter decided that she wanted to kill herself rather than have a "lingering death" which doctors had told her may be a matter of weeks or months away. Quill describes in the article how he referred her to the

Hemlock Society The Hemlock Society (sometimes called Hemlock Society USA) was an American right-to-die and assisted suicide advocacy organization which existed from 1980 to 2003, and took its name from the hemlock plant ''Conium maculatum'', a highly poisonous h ...

and a week later she requested barbiturates to help with "insomnia". He gave her a prescription and told her the amount required to treat both insomnia and the dose required to bring about death. Some time after getting the prescription, she said her final goodbyes to Quill and her family and took the barbiturates alone. Patricia's husband reported the death to Quill who reported the cause of death as acute leukemia but left off mention of the suicide in reporting it to the medical examiner. When interviewed by the ''New York Times'' in 1991, Quill stated that he had not helped anyone else to die before or since. No charges or indictments were brought against Quill. The publication of this story has been considered to have "made history" and to have "stunned the medical community". Quill has subsequently been active in arguing for legalization of physician-assisted suicide, including during the controversial trials of

Jack Kevorkian Murad Jacob Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dying is not a crime" ...

, and regarding the case of

Terri Schiavo The Terri Schiavo case was a series of court and legislative actions in the United States from 1998 to 2005, regarding the care of Theresa Marie Schiavo (née Schindler) (; December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), a woman in an irreversible ...

. Quill has argued against the

principle of double effect The principle of double effect – also known as the rule of double effect, the doctrine of double effect, often abbreviated as DDE or PDE, double-effect reasoning, or simply double effect – is a set of ethical criteria which Christian philoso ...

in bioethics. In 2013, the

American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) is a professional organization for physicians specializing in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership is open to all health care providers com ...

included Quill on a list of 'Hospice and Palliative Medicine Visionaries'.

References

External links

University of Rochester Medical Center profile page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quill, Timothy E. American palliative care physicians Euthanasia activists Euthanasia in the United States Amherst College alumni University of Rochester alumni University of Rochester faculty Living people Euthanasia doctors Year of birth missing (living people)