Response to “Desperate Measures for Desperate Times: Can Physicians Refuse to Treat Unvaccinated Patients?”
In his article Desperate Measures for Desperate Times: Can Physicians Refuse to Treat Unvaccinated Patients?¸ Professor Michael Conklin explores the legal and ethical implications of allowing physicians to refuse to treat unvaccinated patients in a post-pandemic world.
Generally, with some exceptions, non-emergency physicians have the freedom to decline to treat potential patients at their discretion. However, once a physician-patient relationship has been established, a physician’s ability to refuse treatment and terminate such relationship is more constrained. Physicians must take care to ensure their withdrawal does not amount to “medical abandonment.” The exact definition of medical abandonment varies by state. However, typically, it involves a physician discontinuing the treatment of a patient who still requires services and neglecting to arrange for a new provider to assume responsibility for the care.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a physician’s ability to decline treatment to unvaccinated patients has become a contentious point of discussion, one that poses broader questions about our values as a society. On the one hand, we must acknowledge the persistent danger healthcare workers have faced head-on since 2020. Especially in the months before the release of a vaccine, medical providers subjected themselves to undeterminable risks daily to provide care to the millions of patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. But the sympathy and support for healthcare workers that was prevalent in the early days of the pandemic seems to have waned under the pressure of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and pandemic deniers. How long can we force healthcare workers to be subjected to a preventable risk? How much further can we push these people until they break? Allowing healthcare workers to decline to treat unvaccinated patients might be a key strategy in addressing the nationwide physician and nursing shortages, and it also might simply be the right thing to do from a moral standpoint.
On the other hand, allowing healthcare providers to decline treatment for unvaccinated patients poses a significant risk of medical abandonment. Especially in ‘medical deserts,’ where the healthcare needs of a locality are partially or totally unmet due to limited access to quality healthcare services, the decision of even just one doctor to decline unvaccinated patients might effectively deprive an entire community of healthcare. Additionally, widespread refusal to treat unvaccinated patients might set a dangerous precedent. When physicians decline treatment en masse on the grounds of what some may perceive as a difference of opinion, where do we draw the line? Might doctors begin refusing treatment based on political views or sports team affiliations? This is already happening in another highly contested medical area—even in states where abortion is legalized, medical providers who refuse to perform abortions as a matter of personal or religious conviction can pose a significant barrier for women in need of care.
The legal and pragmatic considerations explored in Professor Conklin’s article have broader implications that extend beyond treating unvaccinated patients. This issue reflects the intricate balance between healthcare workers’ freedom, patients’ rights, and the welfare of our country.
