A peek into our twice daily ritual of blood thinner injections; Baby belly photos coming soon!
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This week I recieved a series of phone calls from people offering fresh possiblities for the fall. Now, some of you are wondering: "Are they having a baby in the fall?" Yes, that already accounted for plenty of possibilities (fresh and otherwise), but I've been itching to use my hard won degree since we had to/got to leave teh school in Manado. I've been offered a position as Chaplaincy Resident at Baptist Medical Center which is a year long graduate level program with a stipend and medical benefits slightly exceeding my current arrangements. This is just to say that, just as I was about to begin to prepare my mind for making appointments and taking copayments ad infinitum, a new hope has arrived. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Today at work (at the Family Practice Clinic where I now work), a woman called askinf for an appointment to get ther "morning after pill" prescribed. Fortunately, Catholic Health Initiatives, CHI (with whom our clinic is affiliated) makes the decision for us about whether we even offer such services. She was asking me where she might find a physician who would prescribe this for her.
"Ma'm, I really don't know."
"You don't? I need this soon..."
There is a medical exchange phone service that helps patients find clinics and facilities and asnwers medical questions but in the moment when asked I knew some part of me didn't want her to get it.
An hour or so later another "woman" is at my window asking for "emergency contraceptives," however, she's not sure her ARKids First MediCAID will cover it. We inform her that it won't.
What surprised me more, was the fact that a significant number of my co-workers and superiors had never heard of this "morning after pill" This is surprising to me in a time when teh drug has recieved some national attention as the right of pharmacists to refuse to provide it on conscience.
As a lowly recpetions who feels the impulse to exercies his conscience by not helping a young woman possibly terminate her newly fertiliezed egg (or alternately perevent its implantation), I can empathize with teh druggists who choose not to provide the means. However, I have become intimately acquanted with the breadth of changes that just the firs tnine motnhes of a new life bring. I'll Let you know about the rest of the changes later.
Mmm Mmm MMM. Kids havin' kids.
So, what do you, our loyal readership, think? If physicians can refuse services on conscience should pharmacists be able to? Should receptionists be able to?
6 comments:
From my limited understanding of the legal definitions of what makes someone a "professional" I don't think your last question makes much sense. See, only professionals like lawyers, doctors, and pharmacists have any "duty of care" to provide certain services--a receptionist doesn't have any established legal standing (organizations like the AMA or ABA, accredited educational institutions, common law, etc.) and thus has to manage their own risk of getting fired no matter what they do.
i agree with joshua f. you have no legal responsibility to provide that info. but you do run the risk of getting canned if the doctors decide that you, as representative of the office, are somehow forcing them to shirk their duties. At CHI, I'd hope that wouldn't be a problem. I've no problem, however, with secretaries not providing a service (or info on how to obtain that service) based on conscientious objection, so long as that rejected service isn't "answering the phone."
Wouldn't that be ironic if ARKids provided the morning after pill? --joel f.
You don't have to look hard for irony when you work in a place where drug companies bring grosses of crispy creme donuts.
point taken.
are we really concerned about the massacre of syringes? i mean, really, they're important but there are billions of people without clean water. plus, if we didn't have people massacreing (?) syringes, my psych floor would be completely devoid of patients.
joel
ben and joel,
geez i miss you guys.
myles
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