Compare to teaching, then, another job with a fair amount of dependence on relationship-building between professional and client. A black teacher once told me about a parent who straight-up told his kid that he didn’t have to listen to his teacher. Should the principal have reassigned the kid to a different teacher?
Since (part of) an elementary schoolteacher’s job is to socialize students, my gut feeling is no. Learning to respect authority figures regardless of race would be part of psychosocial development, and aiding in that development is well within what I believe your job description is.
But you tell me, it’s your profession. 
I remember hearing something about a local school hiring a male kindergarten teacher and at least one parent demaning her kid be reassinged to a different class over it.
Fair enough; that is a relevant difference between the professions, so analogy fail on my part.
Even if that socialization weren’t part of the job, however, I’d object pretty strongly to any sort of reassignment based on parental bigotry.
Another thing that occurs to me: if a hospital permits racial/ethnic/religious/gender requests in terms of nurse assignments, it could have a long term negative impact. Let’s say a hospital hires a male nurse and 25% of patients ask to have a female nurse. It makes scheduling a huge PITA but they deal with it because they are all professionals and everyone wants to find the easiest solution for everyone. Certainly no one is going to allow this to impact Bob’s hours, because he’s a hell of a guy. But then one of the female nurses quits and there are three female nurses and one male who apply. It would be very tempting to ignore that male application because while it’s one thing to find a way to make it work with Bob, TWO male nurses would be a much larger problem and they don’t even know that applicant. It’s not screwing over a member of your team, it’s just ignoring a piece of paper.
I can also see that happening with elementary school teachers: if you allow that to become the pretext for moving kids around (and those games are already a huge political mess in some schools), where does it end? You’d be sorely tempted to only hire white women from there on out and avoid the headaches.
I agree that if this were a problem, it would be a problem. But while I WAG that 3000 patients were reassigned today, I doubt that 30000 were. It’s not a problem for nearly as many as 25% of the patients. Probably not more than 5%, but I’d be interested to know if anyone’s actually run the numbers. But I don’t think your slippery slope is a real concern, except - and it’s a valid except worthy of its own consideration - perhaps in small town hospitals without a predictable patient census. Then again, those hospitals have a very different staffing culture, as you’re probably treating your neighbors and family; people you know well because there are only 800 people in town. I couldn’t begin to know what they face or how to fix it.
Even at 5%, I can see it being a reason to avoid hiring someone you perceived as being likely to be the center of this sort of complication. I wouldn’t hire an employee that would be flaky only 5% of the time, so why would I want one that would induce flakiness 5% of the time?
But I can clearly see the other side as well: if someone is in the midst of the most horrific event of their life, is it really time to try to reeducate them? And do we really want to get into the business of deciding what’s a legitimate issue and what isn’t? I mean, it’s probably ok for a rape victim not to want a man coming in her room in the middle of the night to check her blood pressure, but what if she was raped by a black man, and only doesn’t want a black man? It might be simpler to just say “patient requests for reassignment are granted, period”, because then you aren’t letting just the racists get their way.
And how closely should those requests be parsed? For example, if I don’t want a black nurse taking care of me, and all I say is “I don’t want Nurse Smith”, should the person in charge ask why? And should we ascribe reasons that may not be there? Maybe I’m racist, but maybe Nurse Smith just rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s pretty obvious that the father in the story was being racist, but would we assume it was about race if he had simply requested a different nurse?
This thread also got me thinking about a patient I encountered when I worked at the VA. He made it very clear that he didn’t want Dr. Whatshisname because he thought Whatshisname is a “Jewish” name and that “the Jews want to kill me!” Of course the patient was anti-Semitic (and racist) as hell and more than a little paranoid. But when he stated that he wasn’t about to cooperate with Dr. Whatshisname’s orders, it stopped being about racism and started being about compliance and the patient’s own safety. So Dr. Whatshisname – who was about as Jewish as the Pope, BTW – simply took the back seat and let his senior resident take care of the patient. It may have been the path of least resistance, but it’s what needed to be done.
I think the wording should be (if such a thing is even in writing) “patient requests for reassignments will be considered, and granted at the discretion of the supervising nurse as staffing allows.” Which is a wordy way of *promising *nothing at all.
Because despite everything I’ve said so far, I don’t think it’s ALWAYS the best solution, and I don’t think the patient is the best person to determine if it’s the best solution. Have three nurses on the floor and only one of them experienced and certified in Critical Care? Guess what, if you require Critical Care Nursing and my only qualified CCN is a different color, gender or species than you prefer…you’re stuck. The risks of complications from a less than stellar therapeutic relationship are far less than the risks of complications from forcing a nurse who doesn’t know the equipment, assessment or procedures to take the patient. I’m willing to bend, to accommodate as reasonable, but I will *not *sacrifice good patient care in the effort.
Responding to the OP
Wow. That is some bullshit.
On the one hand, hospitals are supposed to comply with the patients requests, including declining certain treatment.
OTOH, the guy is an ass and there is no justification for his request. Furthermore, the hospital actually takes the side of this guy which is obviously morally wrong. It sets a bad example and a bad precedent. But the hospitals hands are tied, and it takes courage to stand up to this type of thing. Obviously they value their safety as a hospital over doing the right thing.
But to leave a note saying “No African-Americans?” Come on, how stupid can you be?
I can appreciate where you are coming from, but I think you are giving short shrift to a few counter arguments.
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It’s never okay to acquiesce to unreasonable, (likely) illegal demands just because it’s the path of least resistance.
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Caving in on issues like this costs the employee being discriminated against something in almost every case. It could be the opportunity to work, money, value to one’s employer, work experience, professional respect and dignity, etc. I think people who are not subject to discrimination on a regular basis appreciate how debilitating overt bigotry can be for some people.
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A good employer doesn’t cater to unreasonable customers at the expense of reasonable employees.
That said, I have no trouble believing your WAG regarding the number of times discrimination of one sort or another happens daily. But, once the hospital makes the wrong, illegal choice, they have to suffer the consequences. If they want to tacitly endorse that worldview, then they need to own the liability that may arise as a result.
But, at some point, it becomes less about least resistance and all about patient safety and patient care. That man could have stood over his baby and vetoed every procedure, consent be damned. Then the hospital would likely have had to get the courts involved to appoint a guardian ad litem, which takes time that might have been used for more productive things, i.e. caring for the patient. It’s sometimes better for the patient to give in. Note that I said sometimes. If the request won’t compromise patient care, fuck the patient.
I don’t think there’s much disagreement there. The issue here was how the hospital handled it.
True dat.
And if the hospital refuses to own it voluntarily, a judge will hand it to them in the form of a judgement against them and in favor of the nurse.
Or, the hospital could have kicked him out. Or they could have gotten consent from the mother. Or a million other things that don’t involve caving to some guy who is not even the patient. Plus, I suspect that he is not a big enough asshole to let his kid potentially die just to make a point.
It shouldn’t take that long if the hospital is prepared for such things. And it almost assuredly will take less time, effort, and money than defending themselves when their employees rightfully sue them for discrimination.
The disagreement is on a major point though. You think it’s okay so long as the hospital handles it in a way where nobody finds out. I think that’s cowardly bullshit, and it’s against the law. Furthermore, you are making the assumption that that is actually possible. What if the hospital was 1/3 Black nurses, attendants, doctors, etc. How exactly are you supposed to communicate that they can’t work with these people without arousing suspicion?
Which they likely will. How many people will die, or receive inadequate care, because the hospital has policies that make them routinely subject to lawsuits from employees? Winning the battle to lose the war doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
I understand you, but again, in the situation you describe, whether or not you serve those assholes is *your *choice, and not a choice that your employer forces upon you. (I am sorry to hear, by the way, that you’ve had to endure such prejudice and bigotry at a university. Sorry, but not surprised. I’m a black guy and student at a large research university, and the looks of contempt (and, sometimes, outright hatred) that I receive from some of the white and Asian students? Oy.)
And yes, I do understand the vast difference between your situation and having a kid in the NICU, but I would counter that ensuring the safety of the child and not discriminating against a nurse because a bigoted parent doesn’t like her skin color need not be–and, indeed are not–mutually exclusive goals, and the fact that the hospital failed in this regard reveals a deplorable lack of judgment and backbone and empathy.
By the way, while I don’t find myself in situations where someone can deny me an assignment due to their racism, I do sometimes find myself in situations where some racist isn’t happy with my presence, and I get a kick out of screwing with them. Think, for instance, of some racist on a train not wanting me to sit next to them, and I, sensing this (because people are, many times, not as adept at masking their bigotry as they think they are), gleefully plop down right next to them. And then, of course, they’re not going to get up and move because who wants everyone else on the train to know that they’re a racist, right? And so they suffer. And I smile. Beatifically.
An AP story on the controversy: HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost