Professionalism

We had an interesting lecture today on the legalities (or otherwise) of abortion. I learned that medical practitioners have the right to refuse to provide abortions on the grounds that they are conscientious objecters (and I learned how to spell "conscientious"). I asked if this was true for any other medical procedure. Turns out - yes! According to our lecturer, doctors can conscientiously object to providing any medical service.

Now - this just strikes me a bizarre. Professionalism is (and I quote my lecturer directly here) "putting your patient's interests ahead of your own". It seems to me that professionalism requires that doctors put aside any and all of their own personal views when treating patients.

Obviously it's not that simple as doctors are not robots or Vulcans or merchant bankers or other such soulless automatons. Nevertheless, the general principle seems valid. In a more practical sense, doctors should be able to either provide the service requested or provide it indirectly by referring onward in a sensible way. Refusing outright to be involved at all strikes me as being extremely unprofessional given that the profession itself presumably provides education to its members on how to perform the procedure.

A doctor who refused to give analgesics because of a personal belief that suffering ennobles the human spirit and gives dignity would be deregistered and would be unable to practise except in regional New South Wales or perhaps Queensland. Why is it that more "mainstream" personal beliefs are somehow exempt from considering their patient's interests and wishes and are permitted to withhold treatment?

When you sign up for a life of doctoring you should be aware that sometimes you're going to have to act contrary to your own personal sense of what's right. Tough luck. Lawyers defend clients they believe are guilty because our system of justice requires them to play that role. Public servants implement government policies that they believe are wrong because they know it is part of living in our type of democratic society.

It's called professionalism.