Stuart Weisberg, MD, who ran a solo psychiatry practice in Northwest Portland and planned to open an assisted suicide clinic in Sellwood, had his medical license suspended on June 24 for unrelated violations, including questionable prescribing practices.
Weisberg said his assisted suicide business was inspired by Jack Kevorkian, a pathologist and euthanasia advocate known as “Dr. Death.”
The Oregon Medical Board issued an Order of Emergency Suspension after the 38-year-old doctor violated the terms of a previous disciplinary order. Weisberg was already on probation and had agreed to meet with a practice mentor twice a week for discussion and chart review. However, earlier this month, Weisberg told the board that he would no longer meet with his mentor, who “no longer supported his ideas pertaining to practice.”
The board found Weisberg in violation of their Corrective Action Order, and added two additional cases to the evidence against him. In one case, Weisberg’s treatment of a patient with depression included Ketamine, a drug in the same class as PCP that is sometimes called “Special K.” In the second case, Weisberg signed a medical marijuana card for a patient with bipolar disorder and a history of substance abuse.
The Oregon Medical Board found that Weisberg’s continued practice would pose an immediate danger to the public and his patients, and directed him to stop practicing medicine immediately.
Weisberg recently began promoting his assisted suicide venture, “Dignity House,” a location where people with terminal illnesses could end their lives in accordance with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, approved in 1997.
Weisberg says he acquired the skills necessary to induce death by treating opiate addicts. His “End of Life Consultants” website details the effects of a fatal overdose, up to and including a “gurgle and a death rattle.” The menu of services includes the following:
- Weisberg’s personal presence at the death, along with his therapy dog: $1,200
- Camera service for a “tasteful, professionally-edited video”: $600
- Catering for breakfast, lunch and dinner: $400
- Media relations (8 hours with a personal assistant/beautician): $400
- Linens and flowers “lovingly” picked from Weisberg’s garden: $400
Oregon’s assisted suicide law requires two doctors to evaluate the patient for depression or signs of psychological impairment that would affect their decision-making capability. The only other states that allow assisted suicide, Washington and Montana, also exclude people whose decisions may be influenced by mental illness.
In Switzerland, however, assisted suicide has been available to persons with mental illness since 2007. The Swiss law was changed after a man with bipolar disorder petitioned the court for the right to end his life, and the court agreed that a lethal dose of medication was appropriate.
Read more: Oregon Medical Board Disciplinary Actions for Stuart Weisberg
2010 Order of Emergency Suspension
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Comments
Sounds like he took a little too much of his own medicine. very sad indeed. I knew Stu personally, and feel bad he lost his license to be a doctor. Money should never be a factor when it comes to helping people. He may have been dismissed from his four yr. residency early because of weed. But then he opened up his own private practice thereafter. (?) How in the world he went from being a psychiatrist helping out mental patients in a private practice to being an addiction specialist, prescribing special k to addicts and signing his name to med. marijuana cards is beyond me and then the death house and all the amenities he offered is sickening all in the course of his completing med school ten years ago. Wow. His ideas may be not so accepting in our country; however, I cannot see why a man like Stuart would jeopardize everything he studied for to lose everything, his pay, career, private practice. I am most certain his parents, and brother who is also a doctor are very ashamed, as am I.
Who in the world would want to go out to dinner at the El Gaucho and sit there and eat, and swallow food as they talk about an expensive overated assisted suicide clinich?
Dr. Weisberg advertises that "security" will be present among amenities provided at his establishment? Was he excited with anticipation that the TV and camera crews would be present at all times filming the first few souls to go Dignity House to Die?
It sounds like sending your dog off to the vet for euthanasia. "Oh my Aunt was euthanized at the Dignity House by some whacked out medical residency flunky".
Who would do that, and who in their right mind (sober) would want to go there to die?
Dr. Weisberg claims most of his patients would be on medicare which is very little (quoted from his tv interview). If patients were on medicare and that poor, down and out, sick with only six months to live why would they render his services? They would have to think of funeral costs first - not where they would die and make a show out of it.
If I was sick, terminal, with only six months to live, and actually had that kind of money (up to $5,000) I sure as hell wouldn't spend it on nonsense like the Dignity House. I would give that extra money to someone who needed it, a family member in trouble, donate it to hungry, needy folks, or use it to bury myself so as not to burden family members.
It's hard enough on family to lose someone to a terminal illness, but the thought of having them presented out like that at The Dignity House is just sickening.
Dr. Weisberg does not disclose where any of his profits of this Dignity House would go to. He never claimed the profits would go toward helping the needy, poor, or elderly. Nothing about it was charitable.
Dignity House is just a slap in the face to those and their families that are suffering from a terminal illness - and if Stuart Weisberg truly wanted to help people, this not a smart choice.
He made a laughing stock of himself and his career as well as the world of psychiatry. Portland, Or should be ashamed for not drug testing this idiot quarterly throughout his residency (which he was terminated for) and throughout his entire career at his private practice.
I hope someone sues him.
thank you George Eighmey for stopping this crazed lunatic and his just as sick wife from opening up The Dignity House.
He deserved to lose his license to practice medicine. I hope it's a permanent judgement.
Sounds like Dr. Stuart Weisberg is missing a sensitivity chip, and he is a modern day "Tin Man".
Hopefully one day this man will get a heart, and work on his public image, and learn about getting along with human beings (if he really is one).
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