The Telegraph
A Christian doctor lost his job in a government department after he refused to refer to “a six-foot-tall bearded man” as ‘madam’, a tribunal heard.
Dr David Mackereth, 56, claims he was sacked as a disability benefits assessor by the Department of Work and Pensions over his religious beliefs.
The father-of-four alleges he was asked in a conversation with a line manager: “If you have a man six foot tall with a beard who says he wants to be addressed as ‘she’ and ‘Mrs’, would you do that?”
Dr Mackereth, an evangelist who now works as an emergency doctor in Shropshire, claims his contract was then terminated over his refusal to use transgendered pronouns. . . [Full text]
The majority of Dutch physicians feel pressure when dealing with a request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS). This study aimed to explore the content of this pressure as experienced by general practitioners (GP). We conducted semistructured in-depth interviews with 15 Dutch GPs, focusing on actual cases. The interviews were transcribed and analysed with use of the framework method. Six categories of pressure GPs experienced in dealing with EAS requests were revealed: (1) emotional blackmail, (2) control and direction by others, (3) doubts about fulfilling the criteria, (4) counterpressure by patient’s relatives, (5) time pressure around referred patients and (6) organisational pressure. We conclude that the pressure can be attributable to the patient–physician relationship and/or the relationship between the physician and the patient’s relative(s), the inherent complexity of the decision itself and the circumstances under which the decision has to be made. To prevent physicians to cross their personal boundaries in dealing with EAS request all these different sources of pressure will have to be taken into account.