Comments | cellio: religion and profession

cellio

religion and profession

Jul 18, 2006 20:39

osewalrus posted an excellent essay on conflicts between religion and one's profession. He and I agree: you are completely free to practice your religion, but if doing so causes complications in your life, you -- not the rest of society -- need to deal with that.

religion (general)

Comments 19

ichur72 July 19 2006, 02:13:52 UTC

Thanks for the link. I couldn't agree more.

dvarin July 19 2006, 06:06:23 UTC

Um... okay. This kind of seemed obvious to me, that if you cannot perform some task in a job description for any reason, that you can request but not demand from an employer a job description which excludes that task.

Maybe I'm just too used to thinking in terms of encapsulation, that I lump physical disabilities in with moral injunctions. :)

cellio July 19 2006, 13:18:10 UTC

You would think it would be obvious, but there seem to be an awful lot of Christians in pharmacy and medicine who are now refusing to perform the obligations of their jobs and expect everyone else to go along with it. Now if they declared the issue up front and worked out an arrangement and then their employers reneged (more on that in a moment), that's one thing -- but to commit to the job and then unilaterally change the rules is, well, unprofessional (to say the least ( ... )

How do you avoid... anonymous July 19 2006, 13:08:08 UTC

thisI was ordered by the Medical Command Physician to not provide any treatment to a newborn infant. We were to let the child die. He felt the infant was too young to survive, based on a highly questionable gestational age. I am not trained to evaluate gestational age and had reason to question the mother's report of the gestational age. I refused the order. They sent another physician out to meet our truck enroute to the hospital. The responding physician agreed that I made the correct decision. The infant did die, but had we done nothing, we would have been guilty of abandoning the patient and possibly manslaughter. The MCP apologized to me in person ( ... )

Re: How do you avoid... cellio July 19 2006, 13:28:20 UTC

I think there's a difference between refusing to provide care and insisting on providing it. Physicians (and others) have a professional code of ethics that, as I understand it, you have to agree to in order to be allowed to practice. That code clearly prohibits refusing to administer care to a patient who requests it (explicitly or implicitly). The MCP who told you not to treat the newborn was giving the medical equivalent of an illegal order ( ... )

I don't see a difference anonymous July 19 2006, 17:14:54 UTC

To some, Plan B is murder. As I've blogged many times, this is an incorrect analysis of the data ( ... )

Clarification rob_of_unspace July 19 2006, 18:55:53 UTC

I worked with people that, when it came to patient care, did what they were supposed to do. But these were people with ethical approaches to their work.

Without such an approach, I believe the rate of resuscitations started would, in fact, vary with time to shift change. This was a hypothetical statement that I thought obvious in intent, but was pointed out to me wasn't.

I do need a proofreader, don't I?

Thread 11

amergina July 19 2006, 16:18:38 UTC

The morality of a country shifts over time. And science advances. I wonder how many pharmacists knew when they started their carrier that they would have to prescribe Plan B (and in Oregon, assisted suicide drugs) as part of being a pharmacist?

What if morality shifts in a way that your (wide use) morality/religion opposes? What happens then? Do you quit your job and start over?

zachkessin July 19 2006, 17:20:29 UTC

No one said it would always be easy. Sometimes being a Moral Person requires you to make a hard choice. If you object to giving out Plan B or birth control pills or whatever that is YOUR problem and you need to deal with it. If you have to leave your job and find a new one to live with yourself than that may be what you have to do.

amergina July 19 2006, 18:30:16 UTC

The other question I have is do you abandon your profession for your morality if you are also serving people who share your morality ( ... )

cellio July 20 2006, 03:09:49 UTC

The other question I have is do you abandon your profession for your morality if you are also serving people who share your morality?I think everyone wins if a person in this situation can focus on serving people who share his morality. I have no more problem with the idea of Catholic (or Jewish or Muslim or Wiccan or...) medical practices than I do with such schools. People aren't all the same, and there's nothing wrong and quite a bit good with forming voluntary associations to meet the needs of a specific community. (This does not mean becoming insular, as it's not likely to affect all areas of life ( ... )

Thread 5