DR. SEAN DiCristofaro of Hurricane - a family doctor, Marshall University graduate and a professional never before disciplined by his peers - lost his medical license for six months.

DiCristofaro is being punished for giving a dying patient a drug that paralyzes the muscles. The man died a short time after the shot.

When questioned by doctors on the complaint committee at CAMC's Teays Valley Hospital, DiCristofaro called his action an error in judgment.

But details recorded in the state Board of Medicine's case against him imply that the physician and the patient's family faced an agonizing decision. The doctor himself had said earlier that the drug was appropriate for a suffering patient when death was imminent.

DiCristofaro treated the patient for several years. In January 2007, the man was waiting for a liver transplant when his health worsened. He went to the emergency room with gastrointestinal bleeding. His breathing became labored and he was near death, the doctor told the committee.

The man's wife and doctor agreed upon orders not to resuscitate nor intubate. But when the man began gasping, family members were understandably upset. The wife asked that everything be done to make her husband comfortable. That's when the doctor gave him the drug.

The unfortunate suffering of the patient and the consequences for the doctor raise a frequent question in American society: how to handle the end of life?

On the opposite page, Dr. Dan Foster points out some of these questions and advises people to offer guidance to doctors and family members in advance through living wills and assigning medical power of attorney.

But even those efforts may not help a doctor who, trying to assuage the suffering of a patient and his family, hastens death, even by just a few minutes.

As people live longer, as medical science is able to help people to survive ever more difficult illnesses, more families will face these questions that defy clear answers.

DiCristofaro is being punished for giving a dying patient a drug that paralyzes the muscles. The man died a short time after the shot.

When questioned by doctors on the complaint committee at CAMC's Teays Valley Hospital, DiCristofaro called his action an error in judgment.

But details recorded in the state Board of Medicine's case against him imply that the physician and the patient's family faced an agonizing decision. The doctor himself had said earlier that the drug was appropriate for a suffering patient when death was imminent.

DiCristofaro treated the patient for several years. In January 2007, the man was waiting for a liver transplant when his health worsened. He went to the emergency room with gastrointestinal bleeding. His breathing became labored and he was near death, the doctor told the committee.

The man's wife and doctor agreed upon orders not to resuscitate nor intubate. But when the man began gasping, family members were understandably upset. The wife asked that everything be done to make her husband comfortable. That's when the doctor gave him the drug.

The unfortunate suffering of the patient and the consequences for the doctor raise a frequent question in American society: how to handle the end of life?

On the opposite page, Dr. Dan Foster points out some of these questions and advises people to offer guidance to doctors and family members in advance through living wills and assigning medical power of attorney.

But even those efforts may not help a doctor who, trying to assuage the suffering of a patient and his family, hastens death, even by just a few minutes.

As people live longer, as medical science is able to help people to survive ever more difficult illnesses, more families will face these questions that defy clear answers.