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Getting Ugly
I do not go to any health care provider for politics. Today, I was denied medical care on political grounds: a cardiologist in the office where I went to request a stress test was talking loudly about John Kerry. In negative tones. I stood up, asked his name, and told him that his behavior was unprofessional. “It’s a free country,” he whined. I told him that he was a liar and that his candidate was a draft dodger. I heard him whine “Not in my house!” as he went to call hospital security.
I sat down, caught my breath. Ended it. Five minutes later, a security man showed up. “Come with me, sir.” I went, shook his hand, and told him that I had no gripe against him. He was just doing his job. We bantered in a friendly fashion. There was no reason to give him trouble. He followed me off the hospital grounds.
But that was not the end of it. I called my insurance provider and lodged a complaint. I am investigating whether denying me service on political grounds constitutes grounds for a medical board complaint. If you live in Orange County and want the name of the cardiologist so you can avoid that practise, feel free to contact me.
Those who read my blog know that I am not uncritical of John Kerry. But I do not condone lies or the use of one’s medical practice as a propaganda field.
UPDATE: “It was his office and he can do what he wants,” said my regular doctor. I don’t agree. What the cardiologist did was a breach of medical ethics. I do not go to any doctor to feel uncomfortable, but to seek insight into my medical problems. When a physician uses his waiting room as a captive audience, he deprives me of the comfort and the confidence in his seeing me as a person. I develop a fear of confiding in him and start to worry if my politics will result in my receiving worse treatment, in not being told of conditions, in being treated as stupid.
A doctor-patient relationship cannot suffer this kind of loss of faith. A doctor who creates conditions under which this happens injures that relationship.
UPDATE: 26 August 2004. There are followups to this article, answering various points and probing issues related to it. For this reason, I have created a Medical Ethics category.
Posted: August 20th, 2004 under Campaign 2004, Medical Ethics.
Comments: 12 |
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Comments
Comment from Kimber
Time: 8/21/2004, 9:52 am
Oh Lord and Lady it gets worse every day. Unfortunately, legally speaking, unless you were denied care in a hopital there really isn’t much recourse for you. It was his private office. Ethically speaking the man shoule be taken to the common ground and flogged, stripped of his license and forced to live on minimum wage for a year.
He’s not a doctor. No matter what his certificates say, he doesn’t subscribe to the Hypocratic Oath. By sending you out of his office without care he went against the creed. First, Do No Harm.
The man is obviously a quack and you’re better off not under his care. I hope you go out and find another cardiologist ASAP, my friend.
Hugs.
Comment from Chari
Time: 8/23/2004, 11:23 am
Sounds like he’s got an ego problem. I’ve learned to just keep my mouth shut and let them babble on. Nothing they say will change my mind or my vote anyway.
Comment from Allison
Time: 8/24/2004, 8:02 am
What a Quack! Better off without ‘treatment’ from him…not to say that it wasn’t wrong for him to behave that way. Were you supposed to be in ‘awe’ of him? Good luck finding a true professional.
Comment from Ron Hoffman
Time: 8/25/2004, 6:46 pm
If he only had to deal with right wingers, he would be out of buisiness. Taht would be good for him and maybe he would see what it’s like to live under this illegal regime.
Comment from Ron Hoffman
Time: 8/25/2004, 6:47 pm
Hopefully, the word will spread about this doctor who obviously has not morals since he back the most corrupt regime in history will lose most of his business.
Comment from Marilyn
Time: 8/25/2004, 9:12 pm
Next time you hear someone talking ugly about Kerry, you could say something like: “Yeah. Bush is my kinda guy. I don’t care if he went AWOL. I don’t care if he did booze, blow and broads. It was the sixties, man, so we should give him a break. Kerry comes across as such a goody-two-shoes, what with all his medals and getting all upset about the war crimes some of our guys pulled off in Vietnam.”
Comment from TheSuaveOne
Time: 8/26/2004, 11:48 am
You have got to be kidding me, you go into a mans place of buisness and call him a liar then insult the president, (whom he is an aparent backer of). Try doing that in a lawyer’s, or other professionals office and i would be willing to bet you would get the same treatment.
Get over it and go find yourself another doctor…la
Comment from Joel
Time: 8/26/2004, 1:18 pm
My experience with lawyers is limited, but the ones I do know do not politicize the workplace either….the whole incident would not have come up if said physician had not been making the environment uncomfortable in the first place….the issue here is keeping the medical office politically neutral because what matters first is the comfort of the patient, not the politics of the provider.
I have no doubt that if this had happened between a liberal doctor and his right wing patient, you would be up in arms. The difference between us is that so would I for the same reason as before: a health care provider is there to comfort his patients, not to use his medical office as a propaganda agency.
Comment from andrea
Time: 8/26/2004, 10:17 pm
There is a very wealthy man here, who uses his wealth (and people’s unhealthy obsession with his money) to opine very loudly about his political stance. What is it? As one friend put it, “He makes George Bush look like a hippie.”
He doesn’t get much argument. Most people are too dazzled by his wealth.
Comment from Rachel Ann
Time: 8/28/2004, 9:33 pm
Well, look at it this way, with an attitude like that would you want him to be caring for you? There were so many other options he could have chosen; he could have given you his point of view in rational terms, and engaged you in a healthy discussion, he could have simply joked about “guess its a no-politics day”, he could have changed the topic, as you requested, he could have just turned to you and asked what brought you to him in the first place and concentrated on that. His behaviour was rather juvenile, to say the least.
Comment from Rachel Ann
Time: 8/28/2004, 9:34 pm
Well, look at it this way, with an attitude like that would you want him to be caring for you? There were so many other options he could have chosen; he could have given you his point of view in rational terms, and engaged you in a healthy discussion, he could have simply joked about “guess its a no-politics day”, he could have changed the topic, as you requested, he could have just turned to you and asked what brought you to him in the first place and concentrated on that. His behaviour was rather juvenile, to say the least.
Time: 8/21/2004, 3:10 am
I presume you can get another cardiologist? Hope you don’thave to wait months for an appointment, as sometimes happens with specialists.