Doctor religious exemption hypothetical.

[geauxtohell]

Asinine is asinine...

If my dog....

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg]Holy Grail - Killer Bunny - YouTube[/ame]

 

[geauxtohell]

A ‘right,’ no, since there’s no government involvement – but an obligation to save a life, most definitely.

Concerning government involvement, the First Amendment right pertains to the doctor, not the patient; the doctor’s right to not be compelled to be personally subjected to a blood transfusion does not extend to the patient. The patient decides whether or not to have a given treatment, not the doctor based on the physician’s religious beliefs. And if the patient is unable to communicate his wishes, the treatment is administered – the doctor’s religious convictions are irrelevant.

First: Thanks for being willing to actually address the hypothetical.
Second: Due to the newfangled religious exemption laws: Dr's religious convictions are now relevant.

It works for me. I am about to found a religion that believes drug seekers are demons and that I have no obligation to treat them. It's going to make my life so much easier.

 

[geauxtohell]

Since everyone seems obsessed with healthcare issues related to sex, let's try another one and let the pro and con sides argue their points:

The setting is an ER in a small town. A trauma comes in. The patient is in hypovolemic shock and has already gotten a 2 liter bolus of saline in the field but still has a weak pulse and unstable vitals/decreasing blood pressure.

The ER has 4 bags of type O blood ready to transfuse when the patient arrives.

However, the physician covering the ER that night recently converted to be a Jehovah's Witness and refuses to transfuse the patient because he believes it violates his religious beliefs. The patient expires before another physician can be tracked down.

Did he have a right to refuse the transfusion.

Physicians, as I understand it, are required to give life saving services to all patients who are presented to them. If they allow the patient to die due to negligent behavior they are liable for the death. Hospitals cannot send patients away who need life saving care for any reason.

They agree to perform life saving services when they become medical professionals. They do not agree to give any and all potential medical services that are available today or may become available throughout their professional careers.

In re providing life saving services, hell, when I was in the Coast Guard and had been trained in CPR and first aid, I was told that if I was seen driving by an accident and did not stop to render aid, I could be held liable for the consequences. I believe though that those laws have changed in the last thirty years.

Immie

So an exception in the law for life saving services?

 

[geauxtohell]

So, to date the score is thus:

1.) A small fraction of posters were willing to address the hypothetical. Thank you.
2.) A large number of posters wanted to either argue the hypothetical, change the hypothetical, or insist the hypothetical couldn't happen. Dullards.
3.) A very small portion of posters were so offended by the hypothetical that they could only result to petty insults. Morons.

 

[geauxtohell]

A young female goes to an emergency room at 0300 and complains of pain and bleeding. Clearly the pregnancy has gone bad in both the patient and Doctors opinion. However, the MD is oppose to abortion under an circumstance.

The patient calls a taxi and is driven to the nearest hospital, 5 miles away. During the ride she dies of exsanguination.

Q. Should the MD be charged with a crime?

Q. As a member of the jury, should the MD be charged and the facts are as stated, how would you find?

Q. As the judge, and if the MD were found guilty of (F) Manslaughter would you send her/him to prison; place him/her on probation with a county jail sentence or before deliberation set aside the finding of the jury?

...

 

[Immanuel]

Since everyone seems obsessed with healthcare issues related to sex, let's try another one and let the pro and con sides argue their points:

The setting is an ER in a small town. A trauma comes in. The patient is in hypovolemic shock and has already gotten a 2 liter bolus of saline in the field but still has a weak pulse and unstable vitals/decreasing blood pressure.

The ER has 4 bags of type O blood ready to transfuse when the patient arrives.

However, the physician covering the ER that night recently converted to be a Jehovah's Witness and refuses to transfuse the patient because he believes it violates his religious beliefs. The patient expires before another physician can be tracked down.

Did he have a right to refuse the transfusion.

Physicians, as I understand it, are required to give life saving services to all patients who are presented to them. If they allow the patient to die due to negligent behavior they are liable for the death. Hospitals cannot send patients away who need life saving care for any reason.

They agree to perform life saving services when they become medical professionals. They do not agree to give any and all potential medical services that are available today or may become available throughout their professional careers.

In re providing life saving services, hell, when I was in the Coast Guard and had been trained in CPR and first aid, I was told that if I was seen driving by an accident and did not stop to render aid, I could be held liable for the consequences. I believe though that those laws have changed in the last thirty years.

Immie

So an exception in the law for life saving services?

Explain what you mean. Where is the exception? A doctor is (as this layman understands) required to perform life saving services and can not simply sit back and let a patient die for any reason. They are not required to perform any other duties.

A woman who wants to look thirty years younger can't enter an emergency room and demand that the doctor on staff perform a face lift because she is going out on a hot date next week and wants to get lucky. No requirement that the doctor perform those duties as there shouldn't be.

Immie

 

[geauxtohell]

Physicians, as I understand it, are required to give life saving services to all patients who are presented to them. If they allow the patient to die due to negligent behavior they are liable for the death. Hospitals cannot send patients away who need life saving care for any reason.

They agree to perform life saving services when they become medical professionals. They do not agree to give any and all potential medical services that are available today or may become available throughout their professional careers.

In re providing life saving services, hell, when I was in the Coast Guard and had been trained in CPR and first aid, I was told that if I was seen driving by an accident and did not stop to render aid, I could be held liable for the consequences. I believe though that those laws have changed in the last thirty years.

Immie

So an exception in the law for life saving services?

Explain what you mean. Where is the exception? A doctor is (as this layman understands) required to perform life saving services and can not simply sit back and let a patient die for any reason. They are not required to perform any other duties.

A woman who wants to look thirty years younger can't enter an emergency room and demand that the doctor on staff perform a face lift because she is going out on a hot date next week and wants to get lucky. No requirement that the doctor perform those duties as there shouldn't be.

Immie

An exception to this notion that a physician can legally refuse treatment based on religious grounds.

 

[Immanuel]

So an exception in the law for life saving services?

Explain what you mean. Where is the exception? A doctor is (as this layman understands) required to perform life saving services and can not simply sit back and let a patient die for any reason. They are not required to perform any other duties.

A woman who wants to look thirty years younger can't enter an emergency room and demand that the doctor on staff perform a face lift because she is going out on a hot date next week and wants to get lucky. No requirement that the doctor perform those duties as there shouldn't be.

Immie

An exception to this notion that a physician can legally refuse treatment based on religious grounds.

The law has always required that a doctor perform life saving tasks. Religious exemptions have never been allowed. You are turning the issue around here. Allowing religious exclusions would be the exception to the law not the way you are stating it.

A physician has a legal responsibility to save a life... but that is where it stops. He does not have a legal responsibility to make the patient healthy or happy. Once the patient is stabilized his legal responsibility is complete. At least that is how I understand things.

Immie

 

[geauxtohell]

Explain what you mean. Where is the exception? A doctor is (as this layman understands) required to perform life saving services and can not simply sit back and let a patient die for any reason. They are not required to perform any other duties.

A woman who wants to look thirty years younger can't enter an emergency room and demand that the doctor on staff perform a face lift because she is going out on a hot date next week and wants to get lucky. No requirement that the doctor perform those duties as there shouldn't be.

Immie

An exception to this notion that a physician can legally refuse treatment based on religious grounds.

The law has always required that a doctor perform life saving tasks. Religious exemptions have never been allowed. You are turning the issue around here. Allowing religious exclusions would be the exception to the law not the way you are stating it.

A physician has a legal responsibility to save a life... but that is where it stops. He does not have a legal responsibility to make the patient healthy or happy. Once the patient is stabilized his legal responsibility is complete. At least that is how I understand things.

Immie

The law is obviously changing via the religious exemption statutes. That's the point of this thread.

The issue of legal responsibility to save life is also a little vague. If I am driving down a country road and come upon an accident, I am not legally compelled to stop and provide care. I can't be prosecuted for continuing to drive off. The "Good Samaritan" laws try to provide legal cover for physicians who do so, but there is no obligation to provide care.

 

[MaxCha]

Do you have a documented case that this scenario has ever taken place? What were the results of the lawsuit? How much did the jury award?

Nope.

And on the same token, are there documented cases of gay marriage leading to people wanting to marry animals? Is there a single documented case of a person ever making a legal attempt to marry an animal?

Or gay marriage leading to incestual marriage? The extremely rare cases of long term incest relationships almost always involve siblings who were unaware they were related when they fell in love. There are only about a dozen such known cases in the world.

The blood transfusion question above is a slippery slope fallacy, though an interesting one. Slippery slope fallacies are a deceptive, illogical piece of evidence.

"If gays marry, next comes incest, and bestiality, then fathers marrying their week old daughters! If two men can, then why not a man and a recently born infant! Or a black guy and a spotted owl!"

 

[Cecilie1200]

Since everyone seems obsessed with healthcare issues related to sex, let's try another one and let the pro and con sides argue their points:

The setting is an ER in a small town. A trauma comes in. The patient is in hypovolemic shock and has already gotten a 2 liter bolus of saline in the field but still has a weak pulse and unstable vitals/decreasing blood pressure.

The ER has 4 bags of type O blood ready to transfuse when the patient arrives.

However, the physician covering the ER that night recently converted to be a Jehovah's Witness and refuses to transfuse the patient because he believes it violates his religious beliefs. The patient expires before another physician can be tracked down.

Did he have a right to refuse the transfusion.

Several reasons why this is a pig-stupid post:

1) I have never in my life seen an ER, no matter how small the town or what time of day or night, that only had one doctor on-shift.

2) Typically, doctors don't set up the transfusions. They have nurses and other staff who do that.

3) A doctor who converted to being a Jehovah's Witness would most likely either change specialties OUT of emergency medicine into something less conflicting, or just change professions entirely. What you're suggesting here is just shy of priest converting to Judaism and wondering if he can still administer communion.

Watching liberal dirtbags twist and turn to justify their bullshit is like watching a worm in hot ashes. Who knew you fools could wriggle like that?

 

[Immanuel]

An exception to this notion that a physician can legally refuse treatment based on religious grounds.

The law has always required that a doctor perform life saving tasks. Religious exemptions have never been allowed. You are turning the issue around here. Allowing religious exclusions would be the exception to the law not the way you are stating it.

A physician has a legal responsibility to save a life... but that is where it stops. He does not have a legal responsibility to make the patient healthy or happy. Once the patient is stabilized his legal responsibility is complete. At least that is how I understand things.

Immie

The law is obviously changing via the religious exemption statutes. That's the point of this thread.

The issue of legal responsibility to save life is also a little vague. If I am driving down a country road and come upon an accident, I am not legally compelled to stop and provide care. I can't be prosecuted for continuing to drive off. The "Good Samaritan" laws try to provide legal cover for physicians who do so, but there is no obligation to provide care.

I do not agree with you about the law changing for religious exemption statutes. Please point me to any bills that are being considered that would allow a doctor to allow a patient to die because of a religious exception.

You know as well as I do that you brought this issue up due to the discussions about whether a doctor or nurse should be forced to give emergency contraceptives or perform an abortion if they have religious views opposing these political issues. We are not talking about life saving precedures when it comes down to emergency contraceptives or abortion. At best we are talking "quality of life" issues.

I suspect there are very few conservatives, if any, who would support allowing any medical professional to not save lives for religious reasons.

Immie

 

[geauxtohell]

Since everyone seems obsessed with healthcare issues related to sex, let's try another one and let the pro and con sides argue their points:

The setting is an ER in a small town. A trauma comes in. The patient is in hypovolemic shock and has already gotten a 2 liter bolus of saline in the field but still has a weak pulse and unstable vitals/decreasing blood pressure.

The ER has 4 bags of type O blood ready to transfuse when the patient arrives.

However, the physician covering the ER that night recently converted to be a Jehovah's Witness and refuses to transfuse the patient because he believes it violates his religious beliefs. The patient expires before another physician can be tracked down.

Did he have a right to refuse the transfusion.

Several reasons why this is a pig-stupid post:

1) I have never in my life seen an ER, no matter how small the town or what time of day or night, that only had one doctor on-shift.

2) Typically, doctors don't set up the transfusions. They have nurses and other staff who do that.

3) A doctor who converted to being a Jehovah's Witness would most likely either change specialties OUT of emergency medicine into something less conflicting, or just change professions entirely. What you're suggesting here is just shy of priest converting to Judaism and wondering if he can still administer communion.

Watching liberal dirtbags twist and turn to justify their bullshit is like watching a worm in hot ashes. Who knew you fools could wriggle like that?

1) Oh really? How many ERs have you been in? I know S&M can be dangerous.

2) A doctor has to write the order for transfusion. It is a medical procedure. This has been covered.

3) It's a hypothetical question. You can join the ranks of the other knuckleheads who refuse to answer it.

4) As for the insults: When you decide to pull the ball-gag out of your mouth and participate in the actual conversation, the thread will be here.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Telephone orders can be given.

And while the head nurse is frantically trying to raise another doctor in this small town, the patient is actively dying.

You mean this hypothetical hospital wouldn't have an on-call doctor?

What would happen if they had an accident with multiple victims? Would the single ER doctor choose who gets to live?

Somehow, they're envisioning a hospital so small it only has one doctor in the entire building at night, with no backup.

 

[Cecilie1200]

You mean this hypothetical hospital wouldn't have an on-call doctor?

What would happen if they had an accident with multiple victims? Would the single ER doctor choose who gets to live?

Why do they need an on call doctor when they have an attending one?

To the second, they don't get much trauma. It's a small town.

Small towns don't have car crashes?

What happens if the doctor gets food poisoning on his lunch break, or suffers some other sort of mishap? There's ALWAYS on-call backup.

Gotta love hypotheticals based on the fact that liberals don't know their asses from their elbows.

 

[Cecilie1200]

It was an interesting hypothetical though.

No, it was retarded . . . just like the anti-religious bigots jumping all over it like maggots on rotted meat.

 

[geauxtohell]

And while the head nurse is frantically trying to raise another doctor in this small town, the patient is actively dying.

You mean this hypothetical hospital wouldn't have an on-call doctor?

What would happen if they had an accident with multiple victims? Would the single ER doctor choose who gets to live?

Somehow, they're envisioning a hospital so small it only has one doctor in the entire building at night, with no backup.

Uh, no. That was never stated.

 

[geauxtohell]

It was an interesting hypothetical though.

No, it was retarded . . . just like the anti-religious bigots jumping all over it like maggots on rotted meat.

Still can't address the hypothetical, huh?

 

[MaxCha]

No, it was retarded . . . just like the anti-religious bigots jumping all over it like maggots on rotted meat.

I'm pretty sure it looks like you're trying to instigate something with someone who continues to respond to you in a courteous manner. He said it was hypothetical.

I'm sure you're aware that many conservatives argue against things such as gay marriage because of the doomsday possibilities that may result - like bestiality and incestual marriage. And I never, ever see them act courteous and say it's just hypothetical.

And those scenarios are equally ridiculous and improbable.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, it was retarded . . . just like the anti-religious bigots jumping all over it like maggots on rotted meat.

I'm pretty sure it looks like you're trying to instigate something with someone who continues to respond to you in a courteous manner. He said it was hypothetical.

I'm sure you're aware that many conservatives argue against things such as gay marriage because of the doomsday possibilities that may result - like bestiality and incestual marriage. And I never, ever see them act courteous and say it's just hypothetical.

And those scenarios are equally ridiculous and improbable.

I'm pretty sure I neither asked you to weigh in on how I address VLWC or anyone else on this board, nor do I give a rat's ass about your opinion now that you've volunteered it unsolicited. There are few things in this world that bore me senseless faster than some pompous newbie pronouncing on relationships between posters he doesn't know. If your hubris can stand the advice, may I suggest that you take a few days to get to know people before pretending that you do?

Furthermore, twerp, I don't care if he "said it was hypothetical", or if he said it danced the hucklebuck naked in the moonlight. It was a retarded question, based on an utter lack of knowledge about life, and if you take being told when someone's stepping on their johnson, reality-wise, as "instigating something", then I also suggest that you take your thin-skinned candy-ass somewhere nicer. I'm sure there's a Care Bear forum somewhere on the Internet. Try that.

I'm sure YOU are aware that those "ridiculous and improbable scenarios" have already happened. People actually DO have sex with animals - which is correctly called "zoophilia", by the way - and people actually do have sex with blood relatives. In fact, at certain times and places and circumstances in human history, incest was common. There are even occasions in this very country where blood relatives DO marry each other, under prescribed circumstances. And finally, there have already been court cases attempting to claim all manner of crazy "marriage rights" on the basis of the cases being carried like war banners by the homosexual activists. So far (except for certain very specific cases of incest), they've been dismissed as silly and far-fetched, but do let's try to remember that fifty years ago, the same would have been said for homosexuals.

So perhaps you'd better find a better "ridiculous and improbable" analogy for a Jehovah's Witness emergency room doctor. Maybe a whorehouse madam who's a virgin. That sounds about the level of reality for you and your new compatriots.

I'm courteous to people who deserve it. VLWC and his ilk have manifestly proven that they do not. Wanna guess which side of the equation YOUR obnoxious ass falls on right now?