The price of ethics......
Feb. 24th, 2009 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osodecanelaSometimes I really hate making people promises. Sometimes a simple promise costs me an hour or three.
A couple of weeks back my Physician Assistant handed me a form that needed my signature. It was a health certificate for a massage license a patient brought in. The problem was the form asked me to certify the person does not have signs of hepatitis B or C. Since I knew the patient does have hepatitis C, no can do. However, is hepatitis C likely to be transmitted during a legitimate massage? Highly unlikely.
Much to the patient's consternation, I refused to sign the form. (Never ever ask a Quaker to attest to something they know not to be the truth.) I did promise them I'd write a letter on their behalf, after going through the medical literature to find anything salient on hepatitis C transmission. This evening once done seeing patients, I spent an hour and a half web surfing, medical site to medical site, looking for research papers, studies, and recommendations on prevention, finally landing on the CDC website and their recommendations concerning job limitations on hepatitis C infected individuals. As I suspected, they do not recommend limiting hepatitis C infected people from any particular job category, including health-care workers.
So, I just finished crafting a letter to the local police department, the people responsible for receiving her health certificate and issuing her license, quoting the CDC's recommendation. I don't know if it'll get her anywhere, but we shall see.
My cost? 2 1/4 hours of my time. Her cost? 50 bucks. Will it get her license? I hope, though I doubt it.
Now off to the hospital to look good in patients. I supposedly home by 10:30 or so.
Most of the time I love what I do for a living. This however would not be one of those times.
A couple of weeks back my Physician Assistant handed me a form that needed my signature. It was a health certificate for a massage license a patient brought in. The problem was the form asked me to certify the person does not have signs of hepatitis B or C. Since I knew the patient does have hepatitis C, no can do. However, is hepatitis C likely to be transmitted during a legitimate massage? Highly unlikely.
Much to the patient's consternation, I refused to sign the form. (Never ever ask a Quaker to attest to something they know not to be the truth.) I did promise them I'd write a letter on their behalf, after going through the medical literature to find anything salient on hepatitis C transmission. This evening once done seeing patients, I spent an hour and a half web surfing, medical site to medical site, looking for research papers, studies, and recommendations on prevention, finally landing on the CDC website and their recommendations concerning job limitations on hepatitis C infected individuals. As I suspected, they do not recommend limiting hepatitis C infected people from any particular job category, including health-care workers.
So, I just finished crafting a letter to the local police department, the people responsible for receiving her health certificate and issuing her license, quoting the CDC's recommendation. I don't know if it'll get her anywhere, but we shall see.
My cost? 2 1/4 hours of my time. Her cost? 50 bucks. Will it get her license? I hope, though I doubt it.
Now off to the hospital to look good in patients. I supposedly home by 10:30 or so.
Most of the time I love what I do for a living. This however would not be one of those times.
