““A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care “elsewhere,” reports The Orlando Sentinel.

“But, he asserts, he “wouldn’t turn anyone away. That would be unethical.”

This physician is trying to have it both ways.

However, I say, let him.

The real ethical question here, in my opinion, is the one about patient abandonment.

Roughly speaking, abandonment can involve turning a patient away from needed care or failing to respond to a patient who is an established patient in ways that are negligent and/or harmful.

These are unethical acts.

This doctor, though, is pre-screening patients—with a sign on his door—so that he neatly side-steps his written wish not to treat patients who voted for Barack Obama. They never get to him. He can’t, then, abandon them by turning them away. He gets them to do the turning away for him.

Pre-abandonment? He has a new concept going here.

Physician abandonment when potential patients see a sign?

Too clever by half.

I don’t want a doctor like this one and neither should you. You can’t make someone into something he or she is not. The man is being candid. He can’t stand this health care reform. I give him points for being straight-forward.

As the story says, full civil rights protection under the law does not cover political views.

At the same time, doctors can’t refuse patients based on race, sexual orientation, religion, gender or disability.

What’s a patient to do?

If you live where a doctor like this one practices, there is more than one urologist and you voted for Obama, indeed, go elsewhere.

If you live where a doctor like this one practices, he is the only urologist and you voted for Obama, you would be in the position of concealing your views from the doctor.  Patients would have reason to fear that their care might be affected if they mentioned anything about politics.

This physicians says he would not turn anyone away but…would he intimidate a timid patient with his fussing and bad jokes? Doctors chat with patients as they go about their exams. Every politician who knows anything about voters knows that what a doctor says to a patient in the exam room carries far more weight than other opinions.

I personally would not want to go to a physician who drew such fine, fine lines that he got you either way if you are a member of the group he is angry with.

He’s playing games with medical ethics. That never works out well for anybody.

If a doctor warns you away with signage, get going. You want to be out of there. If he is all there is, go to the next town, even if you have to take the bus.

The physician-patient relationship has to be built on some exchange of trust between them if it is to work. The patient has not been to medical school. Over to you, doctor. The physician cannot win the confidence of a patient whom he or she coincidentally intimidates. If he is this angry about this, will he get angry with me if I slip and mention my politics?

Orlando Sentinel

“A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care “elsewhere.”

“I’m not turning anybody away — that would be unethical,” Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. “But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.” (Emphasis added)

“The sign reads: “If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years.” (Emphasis added)

…”Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine.

“Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law. By insisting he does not quiz his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their vote, the doctor is “trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation,” Allen said. (Emphasis added)

“But this is pushing the limit,” he said .” (Emphasis added)

Source: Orlando Sentinel, April 2, 2010