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Comment by DangitBobby | Hacker News Reader

Why should they lose their license? They don't need to understand the mechanics of vaccines or immunity to be a proficient nurse, as long as the standard of care they provide follows recommendations and they listen to the doctors around them regarding patient care.

What benefit is there? One fewer person in a critical role due to an incredibly punitive decision is obvious downside. It's like sending someone to jail for a speeding ticket. Absolute fucking madness.

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The nurse was using their profession as a credential in order to give dubious healthcare advice, this is a strong signal that they may be giving other equally questionable advice in their professional setting which is a risk to the patients they are supposed to be serving and a liability to their employer.

The benefit would be if the downside of having one fewer person doing that work is less than the downside of multiple people hearing wrong advice from someone whose license implies they won't talk nonsense about healthcare.

I've no clue myself where the line should be drawn, but there's at least a debate to be had (by people who understand the scenarios a lot better than me). For example, would you say the same about a nurse who tells every patient they see that smoking cigarettes is the best way to prevent cancer, even if apart from constantly saying that they were doing a fine job in other areas?

Well, is she advising her patients not to get vaccines? Because then she's not following the guidelines for standard of care.

Ok, edit my hypothetical person to not advising their patients, but standing at the hospital entrance after their shift telling all other patients that cigarettes are good for you.

But that's not what's happening either. Why don't we represent the reality with itself. She's expressing an idea publicly that she thinks is important for public safety. She is not hurting her patients by doing this. Idiots are dangerous, but the cure is worse than the disease, if the cure is to destroy people for non-violently expressing their concerns genuinely doing what they believe is in the best interest of the community.

I'm not going to pretend to have an answer for what we should do about people like her, but I do know that destroying their lives (squashing genuine, well meaning dissent) is not the answer.

Right, as I said in my first comment I don't consider myself able to judge where the line should be drawn regarding this real person, so I created a hypothetical person to see if you still believed it would be ridiculous to fire any nurse for anything they say outside work hours.

Yes, if she's giving her patients bad medical advice that goes contrary to accepted best practices then she should be asked to stop or find work elsewhere. And if she's standing in the hallway doing the same with people who aren't her patients she could probably be safely fired for being a nuisance. There are appropriate public forums for disagreement and in the hallway of your hospital is probably not it.

Your honest view is that if a nurse is committing medical malpractice the furthest extent of punishment should be "find work elsewhere"?

You are using quite an uncharitable interpretation of what I actually said. Elsewhere being not necessarily a hospital, in this case, but at best a hospital that agrees with her medical advice.

Or are you proposing that she be thrown on the streets, jailed, exhiled, or executed? What do you propose? I too can be uncharitable but that probably doesn't lead to productive conversation.

You are leaving zero space between “cannot work as a nurse” (or “cannot submit testimony as an expert witness in engineering”) to to “life is ruined.”

Furthermore you do seem to be consistently saying a nurse, at a hospital, giving medical advice that doesn’t meet standards of care should not face normal malpractice charges not even face a suspension of license. (Just go to a quack hospital!)

I mean yeah that is position, but like I said elsewhere in this thread, I can’t distinguish it from libertarian “license to toast” bullshit.

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