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Are Personal Beliefs Ruining Healthcare?
John Rossheim | Monster Senior Contributing Writer
An EMT instructed to transport a woman to an abortion clinic declines, citing personal beliefs. A nurse ordered to administer a large dose of morphine to a terminal cancer patient in pain refuses, saying the medication could hasten death. A physician turns away a gay patient, apparently on the basis of his sexual orientation.
Are these scenarios examples of healthcare workers asserting their right of individual conscience, or are they unethical, perhaps illicit denials of patients’ rights to receive medically appropriate treatments?
This question is at the center of a simmering debate that is moving beyond pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptives to other hot-button issues, such as in vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide and stem-cell research, affecting a wide variety of specialties in healthcare. Although there’s no reliable statistical evidence that more US healthcare workers are refusing to treat on moral grounds, anecdotal evidence indicates the phenomenon is growing. A variety of bills and laws, mainly on the state level, either grant or deny healthcare workers the right to refuse treatment.
Healthcare Workers’ Conscience vs. Patients’ Rights
The disagreement is deeply entrenched.
“This is a conflict of the constitutionally based right of conscience and the patient’s right of convenience,” says Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations.
Others say healthcare workers who refuse to provide treatment are breaching their professional duty to put the patient first.
Present and future healthcare workers need to know that these legal, ethical and ideological battles threaten to alter professional relationships and change career arcs.
Account Removed
about 1 month ago
I agree with the EMT. I may be employed with the healthcare system, but I labor for God.
georgie49
about 1 month ago
2 comments
If all health care professionals refused to do something that was against their personal belief system our health care system would be devastated. As a nurse it is my duty not to question someones belief but to give the care I was trained to do, from the obese person with hypertension, the smoker with lung cancer the pedophile who has been beaten. When a person agrees to a career as a health care professional you accept that we are all different and just because it is our belief doesn't make us right and someone else wrong.
Donald what would happen if you went to an ER and were made to wait longer because you wern't the colour, sex, dressed "right" english speaking North Amercian that the Dr. was treating that day because he thought all white,black or whatever.. should not get adaquate health care.
donaldcblum
about 1 month ago
2 comments
I agree with the emt that refused to transport a person to the abortion clinic. I think they have a right, and most likely it had nothing to do with a life saving situation. EMT's are asked to do many things that have nothing to do with administering patient care. Taking someone to an abortion clinic is one of those things. I would not refuse to do something for a patient if it meant endangering their life. Also, personal beliefs have no place in treating health needs. I think your example of a doctor not treating a person because they are gay is rather extreme. I can't imagine that happening, and if it did happen, it was an extremely rare situation(it was wrong, if it happened). It sounds as though someone is trying to stir up controversy using very extreme and unusual situations as a common, everyday practice.
PhillyXTech
about 1 year ago
388 comments
Healthcare and politics have been entwined in a neverending dance for as long as time. This is not an issue that is going to go away, but one of the best ways to address it is very simple. If you are not going to be ok with respecting the patient's wishes one way or another, don't get into healthcare. The only time when it is remotely appropriate to overide a patient's wishes is when there is no question that the patient is not in a state of mind to speak for themselves (aka. mentally ill depressed patient asking to die vs. alert, competent 90 year old with terminal cancer asking the treatments to be stopped.) In their eagerness to please their respective belief systems some healthcare providers may fall into the trap of believing they are a conduit for divine intervention in the lives of those around them. In the mildest of cases this manifests as simple "choices," in what procedures they are willing to perform. But these minor infractions are part and parcell with those who feel the need to be "angels of mercy." Our beliefs are just that, ours, not those of our patients. And we need to be able to respect and adhere to our patients beliefs, and cultural norms as we treat them, or respectfully bow out and find a more subtable avenue for our comfort levels.
deedee
about 1 year ago
2 comments
I feel every person has the right to treatment We do not live their lives and what short time they cross ours does not give us any right to judge them. I personly could not do an abortion but that is my own morals and I will not go into a position in which it is in my job description, But to not treat someone on their sexuality is just narrow minded and should be reported. I feel it is the family or paitents that makes the final dissicion within medical ethics. If I am dieing a painfull death I would rather not feel the pain than prolonge my life and that is my choice not some one in good health standing over me telling me what I need to do. Humble you self and lay down in a paitents bed and look at how intimidating you look hovering over them. You do not know what they are going through untill you lie in that bed with your future in some one elses hands. I am not a nurse yet but am a CNA and my patients are my main priority. They are how you work for if they do not come to you facility you do not have a job. Treat them as you would want to be treated if you were in their position. Upmost respect and completely informed and as in coltrole as posible.
morticia
about 1 year ago
2 comments
i thinkit's utterly repulsive that a medical provider would refuse to administer treatment based on their personal beliefs. I don't think these types of people belong in medicine in any way, shape or from. To practice medicine means providing the best care possible and putting the patient first. What a bunch of crap. I say those types of people who would impose their beliefs on someone else that way enter different professions.
kat1580
about 1 year ago
2 comments
I have been in Nursing for 30 years, ( at many different levels)right or wrong as it may be, Health care professionals are stating they also have rights.....Which ethically is correct.
I have mentored many nurses who do refuse to administer morphine based on the respiratory rate, which sometimes as we know in imminent death supresses. Morally they are correct because it could by law be consider Ethunism...
A feeding was stopped at the request of a Healthcare proxy, not a pt, the nurse carried through, she then thought about it, the patients wishes were not clearly defined and the feeding was restarted.......
A patient with no terminal Dx ( death was not imminent) was denied and the med was dc'd,his procit, by his daughter his health care proxy,(who hapened to be a nurse) because she felt he did not need it and wanted to die; the Renal MD did not necessarily agree with the witholding of the treatment, but the HCP stood tall and the results were as one may expect the man dies with in a few weeks......I personally had a difficult time with this one, the man although deemed incompetent based on poor medical decisions, was not given a life sustaining medication, a thought dictated by his daughter
I have done ICU, Surgery, Prison, Mental Health and have specialized in Rehab and Respite......
Not everything is cut and dry.........reference your legal team when there is a gray area
Don' t judge your coworkers, support them, and teach them..........
Above all keep your head up, people are becoming more aware of their rights as patients ans HCP's........and they are dictating what they want.....Are you all really comfortable do everything?
KAT
lesley66
about 1 year ago
2 comments
Bottom line, all heathcare providers are responsible for their own actions and only need to remember their Code of Ethics they swore to uphold! I have been a nurse for 20 yrs and what i've read here makes me sick. Unless it's going to directly cause injury or harm to a patient, it's not our place to judge or refuse treatment to someone just because 'WE' as a healthcare provider don't agree with their beliefs. These healthcare providers above are wrong and should be disiplined or have their liscenses revoked!!
Garduno
about 1 year ago
8 comments
I agree with you betteboop 100%. a patient is a patient no matter who they are.
betteboop_nc
about 1 year ago
2 comments
I work in a prison. The other nurses look up the inmates to see what they are in for. Then refuse medical treatment. Personally I feel their license should be revoked. Thay are there to follow orders not judge inmates that have already been judged. I really feel the state prisons should deny all access to inmates records except their medical.