Valentine, a physician at Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Alabama., posted that photo on Facebook this week. If the Alabama medical board has any integrity whatsoever, he will be cited for an ethical violation. If I were in charge, I’d suspend his license. Id’ revoke his license. He should not be trusted.
The Washington Post article about Valentine’s unethical stand concentrates on the problem unvaccinated citizens (and non-citizens) are causing in the nation’s effort to get past the pandemic. All of it is irrelevant. So are Valentine’s various explanations for his position, like “[C]ovid is a miserable way to die and I can’t watch them die like that,” and “We do not yet have any great treatments for severe disease, but we do have great prevention with vaccines. Unfortunately, many have declined to take the vaccine, and some end up severely ill or dead. I cannot and will not force anyone to take the vaccine, but I also cannot continue to watch my patients suffer and die from an eminently preventable disease.”
Then go into another field, you arrogant asshole. You’re a professional, and your professional code of ethics directs that you apply your medical skills to all human beings, not just the one you approve of. There are no good reasons to refuse to treat someone in need of medical care. Saying you won’t treat the vaccinated is ethically identical to saying you won’t treat dug addicts, or alcoholics, or unwed mothers, or gays, or convicted felons, or rapists, or child abusers, or Republicans, or Donald Trump. You don’t understand your own ancient profession’s ethical duties, and you cannot and should not be trusted to practice medicine. On anyone.
Periodical commenter (and old friend) Vinnymick alerted me to this story, adding, “I think this doc is unethical, even though I want all to get vaxxed.” As is usually the case, he is correct.
Ethics Alarms 
Please explain how this is different from a doctor who refuses to see patients that engage in behaviors which transmit AIDS.
It isn’t. I think I made that point, no?
The old slippery slope – smokers, the obese, … and the list goes on.
I think this guy is trying to put himself out of business – “I only treat healthy people who don’t need me.”
I can sympathize: I only represent innocent people.
-Jut
Uh-huh, right.
Touché! And funnier too in view of Jack’s recent article on representing the other guys.
Valentine, a physician at Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Alabama., posted that photo on Facebook this week. If the Alabama medical board has any integrity whatsoever, he will be cited for an ethical violation. If I were in charge, I’d suspend his license. Id’ revoke his license. He should not be trusted.
If that bothers you, Jack, this ought to blow your mind:
The University of Washington Medical Center denied organ transplants to patients who refuse a COVID vaccine as early as June 2021. And hospital officials refuse to answer basic questions about their policy.
So it looks to me like the doctor in your article is right in line with this thinking.
Here’s hoping for a public backlash, but at this point, I’m not sanguine.
This really burns me.
The organ donor system is supposed to be relatively blind. This smacks of sanctimony.
-Jut
Yup. Considering St. Tony Fauci’s most recent pronouncements on liberty, this doctor is keeping good company.
jvb
Mark Barta made this point.
https://www.quora.com/As-a-vaccinated-American-how-do-you-feel-about-those-refusing-the-shot-as-cases-surge-and-another-lockdown-looms/answer/Murphy-205?comment_id=216905465&comment_type=2
Just needs the occasional, “Mr. Bond…” thrown in.
Isn’t there an EA truism or rule that says “Facebook makes you stupid”? Maybe, “Shut up and treat” would be an appropriate analogy to “Shut up and dribble, or “Shut up and act.”
No, Facebook makes you biased, and bias makes you stupid.
He should lose all his patients with arrogance like that. If a doctor is that stupid, he would be the last one I would seek out for advice. Does he also refuse to treat people with diabetes, smokers, drug abusers, HIV/AIDS? If he doesn’t, he’s not only stupid, he’s also hypocritical.
“Ethics Dunce”, indeed. You clearly don’t have the first understanding of how medical ethics works. Doctors are not slaves. We have an ethical obligation to provide care to anyone in EMERGENCY situations. We are not obligated to provide routine primary care to people who make choices we don’t approve of. Many doctors do indeed make a choice to not treat drug addicts, gays, fat people, people who don’t pay their bills, or whatever, and –again, with the exception of actual medical emergencies — there is no ethical issue whatsoever with them making that choice. Dr. Valentine has provided all his patients with notice of this policy, and will continue to treat the unvaccinated for a reasonable amount of time while they find a new doctor. Your disapproval appears to be rooted not in any actual understanding of ethics, but in your childish resentment of the idea that people should be held responsible for the choices they make.
Every medical ethics text disagrees with you, as do all doctors I have discussed the issue with. Doctors are professionals, which means they have pledged to help all human beings without judgment or discrimination. Send me your real name and location, and I’ll take it up with the licensing authorities in your area.
Unethical comment of the year, by the way. Congratulations.