@raphjd said in Minnesota surgeon fired from hospital for saying parents, not government, .....:
Minnesota surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Horak, was fired from his job at Lake Region Healthcare Hospital for saying that parents, not the government, should be making medical decisions for their children.
He was fired after speaking at the Fergus Falls school district meeting earlier this month.
On its face, this is a 1st Amendment violation - Lake Regional Healthcare is a Gov't run hospital. The 1st Amendment protects citizens from Gov't reprisals for exercising their free speech rights.
However, if you get more facts, you'll see that Dr. Horak's employer is a private company: Lake Region Medical Group - who are contracted to provide Doctors to the Gov't owned hospital.
This is a convoluted and complicated system of shuffling papers and shell corporations - all primarily designed to protect the hospital (and the Gov't) from malpractice and other types of lawsuits. The Drs don't like it, the hospitals don't like it, and the plaintiffs attorneys don't like it... only the defense attys (who are employed by the hospitals) like it - because it helps them hide from lawsuits!
Because the ACTUAL employer is a private company, and because he signed an "at-will" employment contract - 16 years ago - there isn't anything the Dr can do but put up a new shingle elsewhere... which is sad.
Again, this is an issue where @raphjd and I will agree that it's "wrong", but he will want to have some kind of Gov't interference (laws or rules), where I think that, although it's unnecessarily convoluted - and done so for a nefarious purpose - it is, as the laws are right now, perfectly legal.
We need to fix our medical system in the US - if this were the UK, or Canada, or Australia, then this Dr. would have been employed by the Gov't owned hospital, and would have been protected by the 1st Amendment... But THAT is not why we need to fix our healthcare system! It would just be a byproduct.
