5 hours agoShareSaveCatherine BurnsHealth correspondentVicki LoaderHealth producerShareSaveBBCIf you ask these three doctors about being GPs, their answers are remarkably similar.”It can be the best job in the world,” one tells me. It’s “a privilege” another says. They all talk about how they love getting to know their patients and their families.But all three have different views on assisted dying.Right now, the law here is clear: medics cannot help patients to take their own lives. But that could change.The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being debated in Parliament. And if it goes through, it will give some terminally ill patients in England and Wales the option of an assisted death.Here, three doctors – Abdul Farooq, Susi Caesar and Gurpreet Khaira, who all have a different view on assisted dying – tell us how they feel about the proposals.’A red line I would never cross’Dr Abdul Farooq is 28 and relatively new to his career as a GP.We meet at his home in east London. He gives his baby daughter a bottle of milk before heading around the corner to pray in his local mosque.His religion is absolutely key to his views on assisted dying.”I believe in the sanctity of life. As a Muslim, I believe that life is a gift from God, and that no one has the right to take that away,” he says.Dr Farooq feels taking your own life is wrong, and so, he says, it would be “sinful” for him to be involved in that process – even indirectly.If this law passed – and a patient came to him asking for help to die – he would refer them to another doctor.He says anything beyond that would be “a red line I would never cross”.Dr Farooq’s objections are also informed by his professional experience, particularly his time working in a hospital.He describes seeing “undignified deaths” – people passing away on busy wards – and says the health system is not getting the basics right in end-of-life care.”There is so much we can do to make patients comfortable, if we have the right resources available,” he tells me.”We have a whole field of medicine called palliative medicine that is there to help people towards the end of their life. So why are we not throwing all our resources and money into that and actually making the process of death less scary?”He’s also concerned about specific parts of the proposed law. Doctors would have to assess if terminally ill patients are expected to die within six months before they are approved for an assisted death.Dr Farooq sees this as problematic. The final day or so is easy to predict, he says, but adds that some patients he’s expected to die within six months can still be alive a year later.Is there anything that could change his mind on assisted dying?”No,” Dr Farooq says without hesitation. “I’m strongly against it. Personally and professionally, I think it’s the wrong thing to do for patients.”‘I’ll be at the front of the queue to help’Dr Susi Caesar has been a GP for 30 years and thinks she probably wouldn’t have previously been so vocal in her support of assisted dying.Now, she says she is ready to “stick her head above the parapet”.Recently she lost her beloved dad, Henning. We meet at a lake near Cirencester because being near water reminds her of him.”My father was the most amazing person and this is so evocative of everything he loved,” she says. “The outdoors, walks, sailing, boats, kayaking, swimming.”She thinks Henning would be proud of her for talking to us about her views because he was a long-term believer in assisted dying.When he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Dr Caesar says he became “terribly scared about the manner of his dying”.”My father was a very proud man, and the thing that was unbearable to him was the idea that he would lose control at the end of his life – of his bodily functions, of his mind, of his ability to be the person that he was.”By the end, Dr Caesar says her father’s “medication never quite kept u …
