Peter Baumann

Peter Baumann (15 August 1935 – 1 April 2011) was a Swiss psychiatrist who engendered controversy for conducting physician assisted suicides.

Background Baumann began practising as a psychiatrist in Zürich when he was 38-years-old. He employed body therapy in addition to more conventional methods and attracted attention with his comments on Swiss military psychiatry. Baumann also fought for the reputation of LSD in an organisation called "Schweizerische Ärztegesellschaft für Psycholytische Therapie" or SÄPT. Another member was the also controversial Samuel Widmer.

Suicide was a theme that occupied him for many years; in a Tages-Anzeiger article on 18 August 1973, he asked "Ist Leben freiwillig?" and discussed the relation of life and death and the right to end life. From 1998 to 2002 Baumann worked as a prescribing doctor for "Exit (Switzerland)" and sat on their ethics committee. This organisation assists the terminally ill to take lethal doses of a barbiturate (commonly Pentobarbital sodium) which can be legally prescribed by a doctor. An organisation with similar approach, but one which extends its services to non-Swiss, is the Swiss Dignitas.

Baumann left Exit to form his own organisation, Suizidhilfe, as he believed that Exit did not do enough to further the cause of the mentally ill should they decide to end their own lives. He died of cancer on 1 April 2011.