Getting Ugly

Posted on August 20, 2004 in Campaign 2004 Medical Ethics

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.

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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.