Comments on: Don’t Eyeball Me

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:34:56 +0000

Matt, so your advice as a lawyer is that doctors should just do whatever they think is right and depend on malpractice insurance to handle the inevitable lawsuits? Interesting. Would you consider it appropriate if a doctor suggested that patients should just eat all the french fries they want because most insurance programs cover bypass operations?

By: Kyra Kramer

Kyra Kramer — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:00:21 +0000

awesome!

By: Molly, NYC

Molly, NYC — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:42:02 +0000

Where’d I put that close-italics?

By: Molly, NYC

Molly, NYC — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:39:18 +0000

If what Jenn and Muhammad are saying is true regarding Muslim religious requirements, then it raises a question in my mind whether this patient may have purposely misstated the requirements of her religion so that she could get preferential treatment or possibly even as a pretense so that she could file a lawsuit. What if she didn't? She's in the States now. I realize that (a) the idea that you're responsible for your own religious beliefs might take some adjustment for someone from a one-religion-only culture (as mentioned in an above comment), and (b) medical professionals are expected to cut people a reasonable amount of slack w/r/t their religions. But this whole notion that people's own beliefs are just handed to them and it's okay for them to declare themselves incapable of thinking them through or adjusting them in any way, and are certainly not responsible for the results of their averred beliefs, and--in particular--non-coreligionists are expected to expend any effort to accommodate said beliefs is the sort of thing that gives religion a bad name. Welcome to America, honey. Your religion (or anyone else's) is not being oppressed just because it's not being catered to on the public dime.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:06:21 +0000

Not an excuse, just a fact.

If you can’t understand the difference between a Constitutional issue regarding the limits of religious freedom and the life and death issue you describe, then you’re going to struggle in a lot of areas, I’m afraid.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:40:44 +0000

This isn’t just a religious thing. A friend of mine works for a senior-citizen in-home care business, and she says that it’s almost impossible to find work for male caregivers. Old women are terrified that they’ll be raped; old men are terrified that they’ll catch The Gay.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:38:17 +0000

“Sorry igloo, but the world doesn’t work as quick as you want it.”

I’m sure that WhiteCoat et al will be glad to use that excuse the next time they have to make a decision that might get them sued. They’ll call legal and wait three days for a response, all the while telling the patient “sorry about that sucking chest wound, but the world doesn’t work as quick as you want it.”

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:02:01 +0000

Sorry igloo, but the world doesn’t work as quick as you want it. Hell, no one wants it to work quicker than the litigants. But when we’re talking about questions of Constitutional import, we’re going to take some time to get them right as a society.

The limits of Constitutional rights aren’t, and have never been, simply decided in the moment.

By: Muslim woman demands female attendant for emergency-room EKG

Muslim woman demands female attendant for emergency-room EKG — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:58:07 +0000

[...] Rona Mohammedi is now suing Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey because it told her only male ER technicians would be available to check whether her severe chest pains were the result of a heart attack. [Newark Star-Ledger, White Coat] [...]

By: Molly, NYC

Molly, NYC — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:59:14 +0000

Jenn and Muhammad – Thanks for the input. My impression is that in predominately Islamic countries, everyone is assumed to be Muslim (and a fairly pious one at that) and pretty much everything is set up to accommodate Muslim beliefs. For someone coming out of that milieu, dealing with a culture where they’re expected to accommodate other beliefs must take some getting used to.