Some sexism going the other way today…
Rev Dr. at Give Up Blog has made an interesting post about ethics and the practice of “controversial” medical procedures. This NEJM study basically found that male, religious physicians were more likely to not tell patients about, or offer to refer them for, things like abortions. Anecdotally, the one physician I know of with this view is both male and religious.
A total of 1144 of 1820 physicians (63%) responded to our survey. On the basis of our results, we estimate that most physicians believe that it is ethically permissible for doctors to explain their moral objections to patients (63%). Most also believe that physicians are obligated to present all options (86%) and to refer the patient to another clinician who does not object to the requested procedure (71%). Physicians who were male, those who were religious, and those who had personal objections to morally controversial clinical practices were less likely to report that doctors must disclose information about or refer patients for medical procedures to which the physician objected on moral grounds (multivariate odds ratios, 0.3 to 0.5).
And what’s the first comment to this post? That we should better train / weed out / educate physicians and trainees? No. That men shouldn’t be Ob/Gyns, anyway.
[UPDATE: Original article topic (witholding rx based on moral beliefs) was also covered by Orac]
This is an issue I’ve briefly mentioned before. And I am incredibly angered and saddened whenever this comes up, because prevailing public opinion (at least, in the young female patient population) is that this kind of a sexist view is perfectly acceptable. Which to me seems ironic, because those same women are the daughters of those who fought most of their lives for equal opportunities in society. When they were told they couldn’t be lawyers or doctors or mechanics because they were women, how did they feel? Perhaps something like the way I feel when people tell me I can’t (or shouldn’t) practice women’s health because I am a man.
As I said in the comments, I’m getting tired of some people who make a (negative) judgment on me as a person and on my skills as a medical provider based solely on the fact that I am male. Is that not the dictionary definition of prejudice?
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