What the heck?
The following quote has been circulating around tumblr. People have been quoting this passage and re-blogging it. I went to the actual article from which this statement was taken and I can’t figure out who wrote the article. But it’s on Jezebel.com (link to post).
Doctors in emergency rooms have no right to refuse to provide medical care to someone who overdosed on heroin, even though heroin is illegal and many people are morally opposed to its recreational use. They have to care for drunk drivers, even though driving drunk is both illegal and a pretty universally assy thing to do. Why, then, should a hospital be forced to bend over backwards to accommodate people’s religious beliefs surrounding abortion, a legal medical procedure protected by the Constitution?
Apparently, a group of nurses are fighting for the right to refuse to be involved in abortions because of their personal objection to the procedure.
Ok, I won’t get in on the argument of Life vs Choice. That’s not the problem I have with the quote above. The problem I have with that quote is the author somehow equating refusing to provide an abortion with refusing to treat a patient who has overdosed on heroin or drunk drivers (who I assume were involved in some sort of life-threatening accident, because why else would one “treat” a drunk driver in the ED if not for an injury ? Ok, maybe you could treat a drunk for alcohol poisoning, but then he/she would just be a drunk and not necessarily a driver.).
Unless a woman is dying because of her unborn child, this argument is flawed. A woman seeking a legal abortion must do so before the age of (fetal) viability. This is usually a normal pregnancy. There aren’t life-threatening circumstances. The woman has usually thought about this.
A patient who has overdosed on heroin can DIE. A drunk driver in a car accident can DIE.
What about the woman seeking a legal abortion? She can go and find a physician and nursing staff who are willing to perform the procedure! A guy who overdosed can’t do that. Neither can the drunk driver who is unconscious and bleeding internally.
Absolutely ridiculous. Maybe I shouldn’t be reading things from Jezebel.com in the first place.
Again, this is not meant to be a Life vs Choice issue I am grrr’d about.
And most clinical ethicists will agree that a physician is not required to perform whatever procedure is requested of him or her. A physician only has the moral obligation to treat emergencies as best as he or she can. And the ethical thing to do, if a physician is unwilling to perform a procedure in a non-emergent case, is to make a good-faith effort to help the patient find a willing physician.
New JeffreyMD.com Post: Getting Along With Nurses
Last week, in my post titled Doctors & Nurses, K8 left this comment/question:
“I’m about to start the journey of medical school. If you had to give advice to someone just starting, what would you say is the best way to appreciate and/or get along with the nursing staff?”
I thought that was a great question. And if you glance back at that post, you’ll see that I said I’d answer her question in a separate post because I thought it was such a good question. Now, I still think it’s a good question, but I am struggling with coming up with a good answer — at least a good enough answer to justify writing a separate post for it.
(more at the above link)
New JeffreyMD.com post: Doctors & Nurses
Unfortunately, it seems that many nurses have a bitter feeling towards doctors. I can’t say I know why. But only because I don’t know their perspective. I can only speculate. But I’d venture to guess that at the core, it is an issue of feeling unappreciated and disrespected by doctors. Those feelings can then easily turn into resentment….
Source: bit.ly
