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After reading “Dismissing the Family Who Refuses Vaccines: A Study of Pediatrician Attitudes” by Flanagan-Klygis et al,1 I spent a sleepless night feeling sad, ashamed, and angry. How can physicians dedicated to patient-centered care “fire” families who make independent health decisions? We are not generals demanding obedience; we are servants of life, of free human beings. They come to us for help, not demands to do it “our way or the highway.”
What's next? Will we fire families who let their children watch more than the “maximum” of 2 hours of television daily? Fire parents who let their children ride in the back of pick-up trucks? Fire parents who do not feed their children at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily? Or just those who serve less than 3? Or those who overfeed their children and allow them to become obese? Or those who don't have sufficient funds to buy food or shelter and have hungry, homeless children? Or those of different religious or cultural or racial backgrounds?
On just what part of the Hippocratic oath or conventional medical ethics are we relying when we make such decisions or are they based purely on a sense of self-righteousness?
Many patients are voting with their feet and have already started firing this kind of rigid pediatrician, turning instead to humanistic clinicians from other disciplines such as family medicine, chiropractic, and naturopathy. We have not just started on this slippery slope; we are well on our way. It is time to turn around and head back to the high ground of true service before we hit the depths of petty tyranny.
Correspondence: Dr Kemper, Departments of Pediatrics, Public Health Sciences, and Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157 (kkemper@wfubmc.edu).
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
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