Everyday lately, I wake up and think to myself…
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Anyone know when that happened? My guess would be either
- 187x
- 1900-1915
- 1955-1965
- 2008-present
For obvious reasons. In the brief time I lived there (early '90s) I never encountered it, which makes me suspicious.
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Population density. The Southwest has a few big cities, but they tend to be islands surrounded by huge tracts of empty land. The Southeast certainly has less populated areas, but anywhere east of the Mississippi is far more likely to have at least a few folks living there.
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Watch the denominator. Always watch the denominator.
That map shows rate of increase, not actual prevalence of disease. I was tipped off by some of the places I know that have nearly zero population and where the infection rate is basically noise.
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Yeah, me too - treating one unvaccinated person would pose harm to multiple people, and since there’s nothing that stops people from being vaccinated, it’s not really a barrier, any more than, say, the paperwork that patients would have to fill out to be treated would be, and certainly less of a barrier than requiring the patient to have insurance (which the doctor, I’m sure, also requires).
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Not really.
IANL, and certainly no US one but there must be precedents on how doctors deal with patients that refuse treatment. A doctor can’t be forced to treat a patient who refuses treatment, right?
A vaccine is treatment, one that this doctor advices before any other treatment(*). Any patient who refuses that refuses treatment. Simple.
There is also the obvious truth that a medical professional has no obligation, not even under any professional oath to assist a patients that threatens to kill them. Refusing a vaccine is maybe not the same as threatening to shoot any doctor that treats you, but the difference is in degree of the threat, not in the nature.
(*And that makes sense too. Whatever it is you see the doctor for(**) is NOT going to be helped with a COVID comorbidity.)
(**Possibly exception for really serious needle phobia.)
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It’s the CDC risk level. The overall message is “nowhere is safe”.
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When law enforcement gets involved, I wouldn’t bet on that:
ETA: I get that this is a different context, but given the vocal minority screaming about “their freedoms,” I can well imagine them wanting others to force doctors to give them care, even when their actions (or inaction) caused the problems.
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I wonder if contemporary versions of the oath say anything about having to accept any and all patients?
It wasn’t long ago that hospitals segregated patients by race. And that practice didn’t end because someone passed a law making racial discrimination in medical care illegal, it mostly ended because hospitals that discriminated by race weren’t eligible for Medicare money from the Federal government. If doctors could find room in their ethical codes to turn away Black people then surely there’s some room in there to turn away anti-vaxxers.
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Eh… I’m not in favor of moving Libertarian-anarchist-paranoics to an earlier time period, where they could engage in all kinds of hsitorical fuckery. Much better to take a page from Vernor Vinge’s Marooned in Realtime and displace them 10,000+ years into the future.
If humanity still exists, they’ll have 10,000+ years to prepare for their arrival.
If humanity doesn’t exist, welp, those Libertarian-anarchist-paranoics can do whatever they want, because their actions won’t affect society.
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Transportation in large part. The county seat was where a lot of things (notably courts) happened and you really didn’t want to be terribly far from it. Therefore, the county in most of the 19th century couldn’t realistically be more than a day or so by horseback from its center. Between rail in the 19th century and automobiles in the 20th, the trip to the county seat got shorter for long trips. Add that in the West people were just more used to spending time in the saddle. There’s a good account in No Land for a Lady of the author’s younger brother being sent on an errand from Datil to the county seat in Socorro (sixty-plus miles today by US 60). IIRC he wasn’t yet 10 years old.
In addition, the people moving west were less inclined to care about the county anyway. With the population density being as low as it was (and mostly still is) the post-Civil War States (check the map. Obvious break.) didn’t place that much emphasis on the county government. At a guess telegraphs played a big part in that.
That’s ‘not really’ my opinion?
Gee, thanks ever so much for letting me know.
Good question.
The thing is, rules and standards only matter if the majority actually upholds them.
I desperately need some major good news; this last few weeks has been thoroughly disheartening.
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You can only refuse to treat transgender patients.
And those without insurance.
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And pregnant women who want an abortion, in some states; if it violates the doc’s ‘religious beliefs.’
Weird how this seems to work, ain’t it?
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They’re not libertarian anarchists. They’re authoritarian cultists.
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So, the question here is the setting.
If the doctor is in a publicly funded hospital, it is unlikely they could refuse service to any patient who shows up. There are some carve-outs for religious exemptions (personally, not a fan of this), and certain diseases (think: Ebola) where the doctor doesn’t have the ability to safely treat the patient. The hospital gets around this by having more than one doctor on staff, and incentivizing volunteers to treat a patient.
If the doctor is in a private practice, they can choose whether to take a patient into their practice, and they can drop a patient from their practice with sufficient warning (such as saying: If you don’t take your blood pressure meds, I can’t be your doctor anymore).
This is of course generally speaking, and each jurisdiction may differ.
The second is what this doctor appears to be doing: He appears to be giving notice that he will drop patients who are not vaccinated from his practice. Unless he has a contract with the patient that says he has to treat the patient no matter what, he is well within his rights to tell them he can no longer in good conscious be their doctor.
And I say: good on him. Having a doctor threaten to eject them from their practice is often a wake up call to patients that they need to change their ways.
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Prior to vaccination, there were several primary care offices (including my own) that had a policy of refusing to treat healthcare providers due to the risk of covid, instead referring them all to the ED. Compared to that, refusing to see covid vaccine refuseniks seems positively rational.
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Thankfully this is not how most doctors feel or they would not treat anyone with any infectious disease.
It’s only a matter of time before this results in the usual hypocrisy from conservatives and Libertarians who’ll conveniently ignore the fact that choosing not to be vaccinated is also a personal choice that has consequences.
Before people start expressing grave concern about the hypocratic oath, I’m sure this doctor will treat any patient for any illness (including Covid) regardless of vaccination status when he’s working in whatever hospital he’s affiliated with. In his own clinic, however, he’s allowed to tell these science-denying morons to take a hike to reduce the odds of harm to himself, his staff, and his reality-based patients.
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