I'm really surprised to read that this is an 'open secret' in hospitals, because in nearly 10 years of nursing in a major hospital, I never once heard of it. The only objections we encountered were to the opposite gender, based upon religious and/or cultural grounds, and those we honored, same as religious dietary requests.
How can you state that you have never once heard of it, and then in the same paragraph show examples of where you actually encountered it?
PS In this particular case, the complainant is the father of the patient: his newborn. Who most likely couldn't have cared less what color skin cared for him, and would have no additional stress on that account.
I agree with you there. I think the father was out of line in making the request, and unless the baby could not be moved to another hospital because of a medical condition, then the hospital shouldn't have granted the request.
PPS The original Hippocratic Oath has been abandoned, [maybe because it required free education for doctors?] and a more modern version is used.
Of the various editions of the oaths given today in the US and Canada, only 14 percent of them expressly prohibit euthanasia, 11 percent hold covenant with a deity, 8 percent prohibit abortion, and a paltry 3 percent forbid sexual contact with patients - all of which are maxims held sacred in the classical version of the oath.
The original Hippocratic Oath is largely inadequate to address the realities of a medical world that has seen huge scientific, economic, political, and social changes, a world of legalized abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and pestilences unheard of in Hippocrates' time. In an environment of increasing medical specialization, should physicians of such different stripes swear to a single one-size-fits-all oath? With governments and health-care organizations demanding patient information as never before, how can a doctor maintain a patient's privacy, which the original oath demands? Are physicians morally and ethically obligated to treat patients with such lethal new diseases as the Ebola virus? AIDS? Hemorrhagic Fever?
The AMA Code of Ethics covers a lot of it, though.
Incidentally, there is no legal obligation for a medical student to swear to an oath upon graduation on becoming a doctor. More than 99 percent of US doctors do, but some don't, which kinda makes you want to know if your doctor is one of the one percent. Only about 50% of doctors in England have sworn the Oath.
