Ten physicians at the Ljubljana UKC hospital’s surgery programme for congenital
heart defects of children are reported to have used a “conscience clause” in order to deal with a dispute involving the occasional engagement of foreign surgeons. Their complaint centres on the fact that a visiting Israeli surgeon does not remain for post-operative care of the children. It is not clear how this could have been done, since Slovenian protection of conscience laws are not applicable in the situation described. The report elsewhere refers to the physicians’ action as a “collective resignation.” [STA News Service] The engagement of the Israeli surgeon had previously been found to be and example of corruption [STA News Service].