[LorenPechtel]

Why do you think this was basically a form of suicide?

Pancreatic cancer still has a dismal "survival" rate, and I hesitate to even call it "survival" as it's more a matter of not having died yet. He's seen what chemotherapy does to patients, he knows it's trading the horrors of chemo for a bit longer life. That article is 10 years old--pancreatic cancer is still very deadly. No reprieve was coming down the road.

False hope generally leads to inferior outcomes.

[tpoacher]

I'm not necessarily arguing it was a form of suicide (or blaming the victim, as it were).

I'm arguing that the impetus to prolong life is generally a very strong and biologically ingrained urge rather than the result of cold rational thought, and therefore in general such rational thought is often predicated on having lost the biological imperative to some extent (e.g. through a mental health process).

And secondly, the "danger" I'm cautioning against is that this narrative that glorifies rejecting treatment is usually painted as "horrible chemo" vs the implicit scenario of dying peacefully in your bed. But this is not the case, cancer can have horrible symptoms, typically excruciating pain. Chemo is often performed exactly in order to control those symptoms by shrinking the cancer, even if prognosis of survival is poor. There's a reason hospices exist, and it's not because people are ignorant or cowardly and afraid to die in a dignified manner and choose horrible chemo instead of quietly dying in their homes.

In fact, one thing one might want to consider here is that, as a doctor, he may have had easier access to morphine, and this may well have influenced the decision.