Hypocritical health care workers need not apply

There is so much crazy loose in the land — so much moon-howling madness — that it seems impossible to establish a hierarchy: Which view is more idiotic? Which conspiracy is loonier? Still, I’ll confess to a certain obsession with the refusal of some medical professionals to get the vaccine against COVID-19. That one seems, well, pretty far up the crazy ladder.

Headlines notwithstanding, vaccine refusal hasn’t gripped large portions of the health care establishment. As states and hospital systems mandate the vaccine for their employees ahead of the federal mandates to come for all large businesses, only a small percentage of nurses and medical technicians of various sorts have walked away from their jobs, according to published reports.

Most employees have complied — even if reluctantly — rather than be fired.

But even a few terminations can pose problems at some hospitals, which have already been stretched to their limits by the pandemic. One hospital in upstate New York was temporarily forced to stop delivering babies after several staff members quit rather than get vaccinated.

I cannot fathom why any medical professional would insist that the vaccine somehow violates liberty, religious belief or the sanctity of the human body. I don’t know why any nurse who has been vaccinated against measles, smallpox and whooping cough, as most schoolchildren are, would refuse a vaccine against COVID-19.

Sure, other supposedly sane adults have made the same decision to refuse the vaccine. Conservative radio talk show hosts have done so (and several have died as a result). So have some teachers, preachers and professional athletes.

That’s nutty, too. But the soldiers and priests and basketball players who have refused to be vaccinated haven’t been educated in the health care field. They haven’t dedicated themselves to the teachings of science. Medical professionals have. Why would they spend years working in a field if they doubt its principles? Why get a college degree in something you don’t believe?

As a journalist, I have devoted decades to the belief that a democracy is best served when its citizens have access to facts about the society in which they live: its government, its institutions, its culture. My belief in the importance of factual information has been challenged over the past few years, heaven knows. But I cling to it. I wouldn’t work in my profession if I didn’t believe in it.

That’s not to say that journalists always do the job well, always get the facts right. We make mistakes; we reflect our own biases; we have been reluctant to investigate some prestigious institutions, such as the Catholic Church. But the best news outlets own up to their mistakes and attempt to correct them. (Note that Fox News and its imitators are not journalistic institutions, no matter their mottoes. They are in the business of political propaganda.) True journalists believe transparency and accuracy matter.

Some medical professionals, however, don’t seem to believe that science matters. They seem skeptical about the epidemiological research that undergirds much of what they do. A nurse could administer shots and pain medications and all sorts of other pharmaceuticals to patients while doubting their efficacy or safety? A respiratory therapist could assist COVID patients who can’t breathe and still refuse to get the vaccine? They believe the clowns on the radio over the science they learned in the classroom?

Again, that weird cognitive dissonance — that strange disconnect — applies to only a small percentage of medical professionals. According to a survey by the American Medical Association, 96% of practicing physicians have received the vaccine. That includes physicians among my family members and friends. I count nurses among my family members and friends, as well, and they have all been vaccinated.

As for those who refuse the vaccine, good riddance. Who needs a nurse who doesn’t believe in the vaccines he dutifully injects into others? Who wants a medical technician who doubts the science she studied? The medical profession is better off without them.

But they can keep their place near the top of my crazy list.