That the provided service is given to a human, an animal or a machine is irrelevant to six of its ten definitions, including the number one (i.e., its most common usage) definition.

I've cared for many and served many but no. I've never serviced any.

I live about 7 minutes from Beaumont Hospital - Dearborn. This happened a couple of months ago. I find it disgusting. Thanks to trump, racists feel emboldened.

don't cater to racist requests

I will have to respectfully disagree with you.

She will lose.

This sort of thing and much worse happens to nurses all the time. Sick and injured people (as well as their families) are frequently irrational and unreasonable. Nurses bear the brunt of that and are injured emotionally, psychologically, and frequently physically while doing their jobs far more often than the general public is aware.

When a patient, for whatever reason, makes it clear they don't want a person caring for them, it's in everyone's best interest to not have them cared for by that person. Period.

Injustice, prejudice, antisemitism, misogyny, reminds them of their evil uncle, whatever.....you do not set up a healing situation by forcing a patient to accept care from someone they don't want to receive care from.

This has been standard practice forever, the nurse is beating a dead horse and it is unlikely in the extreme that she will prevail in this matter.

Over the course if 25 years I was removed from cases for various reasons: not being black, not being white, overweight, refusing to lead a prayer, looks like a dyke....
If my record had been impacted in a negative way or I hadn't seen the same happen to others there would have been an issue. As it was, their loss...

She is gasping for air and slowly losing consciousness.

If she had to work less hours just because the hospital honored the racist patient's request, I think she should be awarded the loss of income.

However, if she still worked the same amount of hours, and didn't make any less money, I don't really see what her financial damages are.

She was not allowed to perform her duties because she is black. Would you welcome Jim Crow laws back?

patients/clients request female/male/black/white/young/old nurses/doctors/social workers all the time. I guess it has to be an agency decision as to whether to accommodate a request like this and then it has to be stuck to. But ya can’t say this patient should not be accommodated and then go in and ask for a female doctor and expect them to comply.

Of course, it isn't at all what I said.

I think (or at least hope) you didn't genuinely interpret it that way. If you actually think I said that blatant racism is cool, or that I implied that I would welcome Jim Crow laws back....then you're an idiot.

What I don't understand is what her financial damages were. The article isn't clear on it.

Generally, that's how these things work.....somebody does something wrong to you...it costs you money, so you sue to compensate for the money you lost. The article never says if the nurse was sent home because of the racist patient's request (thereby costing her money), or if she still worked the same amount of hours (thereby, not costing her any money).

What were the monetary damages regarding whites only water fountains, blacks to the back of the bus, separate entrances in the back of a business for blacks?

The civil rights movement resulted in the revocation of those practices. But as far as I know, there haven't been a lot of monetary damages paid out to the victims of those practices.

In this particular case the nurse is being asked to be compensated with money. That generally means that you have to show that because of someone else's negligence, or just straight up intentional wrong-doing, that you've been cost some money.

The article doesn't say what those damages were. Did the hospital cut her hours because of the racist's request? Did the hospital move her to a lower paying position? What happened that resulted in the nurse losing money? That's important, because that is part of what she is suing for.

she is likely to have with her case if part of it's based on any claim of financial harm when the incident happened.
Another hurdle is the courts could throw it out due to the issues it could raise where it could prevent patients from deciding on their own treatment which includes having the right not to deal with a specific nurse or doctor not because of their skin color but because the patient thinks they are an asshole.
I know in my own case that I have encountered such doctors and in fact that is why I have not seen an endocrinologist in 8 years because the last one I dealt with was such an asshole.
This year though I finally needed to see one about my diabetes and I choose a women and so far she seems to not give me the "I am a giant asshole" vibe that the last one did.

Highly qualified - graduated 3rd in his class.

Is occasionally removed from care teams because the patient wants a female nurse. Most of the time the requesting patient is a female or people from more "traditional" cultures. The request is always granted.

Should he have sued based on gender discrimination?

Once a Muslim family demanded he stop working with their child after the father noticed his wedding ring which is engraved with Stars of David. The hospital granted the request.

Should he have sued for religious discrimination?

Patient care comes first, even when the patient is a bigot.

I don't recall her ever mentioning something like this happening to her (mostly native/Latina). When she was called in they operated with the personnel they had on hand.

you shouldn't make ugly assumptions

"Williams is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as court costs and attorney fees."

Any payment she receives would be a result of the legal process, not what anyone " thinks" should happen.

If she complained to HR, and they illegally threatened to fire her to intimidate her into being quiet, the punitive damages would make sense.

It's the compensatory damages the article isn't clear on. Did she lose money because of this incident? The article doesn't say.

probably asked that no "black" blood be used either....WTF? These people (racists I mean) make me SICK!

Since blood types and the possibility of safe transfusions were the discovery of a black doctor.

Many years ago, my grandmother was severely ill with breast cancer, and at one point got a blood transfusion. It happened to be from a black donor. Of course it worked as expected, keeping her alive a bit longer.

Let's explore where this decision could take us. If there is a single hospital in a community and, the community as a whole, shares this patient's intolerance with regard to African-American medical nursing staff, why would the hospital hire anyone from this minority group. The unwritten application addendum would in essence state that a qualified African-American nurse need not apply because the patient(s) don't desire health care from this race of people. Nuts...

enough to make it reasonable to not hire a certain group. Plus, African-American people are just as liable to demand an African-American professional. It’s more common around gender in my experience.

However, hospitals change care providers at patients' request all the time. Most commonly it's because someone isn't comfortable with a care provider of the opposite gender. If a male patient requests a male doctor because he's uncomfortable being treated by a female doctor, that's not automatically misogyny.

Refusing the request, as disgusting as it was, wouldn't have done anyone any favors. If I were the supervisor, I'd make it clear that I found the request to be deplorable even though I was complying with it.

And if the hospital had refused, the nurse might have sued because the hospital required her to treat a racist, which created a hostile work environment. The hospital couldn't win no matter what they did.

at some point a male doctor is going to sue for being undercompensated / denied a position due to sex, and it will probably get ugly. There are already tons of "behind the back" whispers of OB residencies not accepting male medical students.

The racist patients statements may well be used by the Hospital to defend themselves from the nurses suit....

If they allowed her back in that freaks room and she hurt the nurse...all hell would break loose.

Beaumont made the right call....diffuse what could be a dangerous situation for their staff.

I think if it is a normal blood stick or a catheter up your peepee for a normal patient they do say

"Suck it up, Buttercup."

theyd have sent in a first year nursing student.

wrote a novel about just this type of incident. It was a fascinating read, even if fictitious.

There are good nurses and substandard nurses. If I were the head nurse, I'd assign this racist one of the substandard ones - you know, the type of nurse who sticks your arm a gazillion times before they find a vein???

If you're willing to deliberately put a patient's care in jeopardy or subject them to needless suffering ("the type of nurse who sticks your arm a gazillion times before they find a vein') as an act of spite or vengeance then you should reassess your career choice.

Perhaps the job of Corrections Officer would better suit your level of compassion and regard for your fellow human beings?

But that is in normal racism which should not be respected.

Hire a private nurse.

We don't have time to respect your shit.

as the poster I responded to does then I sincerely hope you are not in the provision of patient care.

To continue to stick you

Or would you like the African American that could find a vein on a dehydrated hamster a try?

Go sell it up the street.

All stocked up on racist apologist here/

If you can't handle that patients come in all shapes, sizes and ideologies then the only person that needs to go up the street is you - to the OneStop to find a more suitable career.

The only thing I sell is the truth and certainly not an apologist for anyone. E for effort on your attempt at implication.

... some nurses are better at IVs than others. Doesn't mean they're *bad* at other parts of their job. They might just need more experience.

If a pt requested no black/brown/(fe)male/whatever staff treat them, and I was head nurse on a shift and knew accommodating their request would mean their IV wasn't painless, I would not regret if they were choosing to eliminate the best nurse I had that night on staff insofar as their ability to get an IV going without pain. IVs aren't always painless even in the best of circumstances. Also, the pt apparently has such a mental issue with the class they want excluded from their care that they might really rather a bruised arm even if I'd ordinarily have our best IV person take them because it looked difficult.

If a nurse is so "substandard" that they shouldn't be treating pts, they shouldn't be employed at all. That doesn't mean every nurse, qualified or not, is the same in their particular skills.

Edit to add: this opinion comes from having unfortunately terrible veins and multiple hospitalizations at my age, but fortunately having great nurses of every race, gender, sexual orientation, and (if known) religion treating myself and family members over the years. Often times when a pt is a "hard stick" that pt's nurse will get the best IV person on at that time to help. Many times that nurse has been a highly experienced woman or man of color. Should a pt have such issues with skin color, well, sucks to be them that night, and that's just how it is.

But yes.

If someone was that level of racist I really would not care all that much if they were not getting the most skilled care because they rejected it.

Dementia would be different.

The "dehydrated hamster" line had me rolling. Too bad you can't put it in those words without risking a JHACO complaint to such a patient.

Believe me, if I'm sick enough to be in the hospital, I don't care who gets my IV going. Truthfully, during most admissions I've been too concerned about breathing to focus on anything else. About the only exception was when they started to give me morphine IV -- I had pneumonia and an asthma exacerbation, pleural effusion, yes I was in pain but wasn't expecting THAT (though I have to admit it definitely did help the sense of suffocating as well as pain so very well may have been the appropriate intervention, I was scared of IV narcs).

Said to the nurse, "Woah! Let's go easy there, I've never had that before." She pushed slowly while looking at my pupils, only had to give half of what was ordered before I was good as a result, and it was pills after that.

Not sure how often you get that reaction, but was grateful she understood what I meant -- opiate-naive pt, please don't snow me!

Ever since my doc got my blood pressure perfect, nobody can tap a vein on me anymore. It’s nobody’s fault that they don’t puff up.

Also, I’ll take a black nurse any day. Or green, purple, tan...

... I'd be questioning whether they truly needed hospital care. And in my city, they'd be screwed. The hospital *might* be able to accommodate their request, but they'd screw up the rotation so badly it'd mean they were risking the quality of care -- not necessarily that the people would be bad nurses, but it'd break the flow every time for med passes, etc.

Then again I am not a nurse to know how often it happens, and if they suck up the disruption to avoid JHACO complaints.

I'm not a person of color so saying how I think I would react is nuts. I'm not in this nurse's shoes. I do have to think, however, that some of this could have been avoided by her clinical manager saying, "How horrible! Do you want to be reassigned? I don't want her to abuse you, and she's obviously going to be difficult. We can get the new girl some experience and get you assigned to a pt who deserves you." And if she didn't, then waiting for the pt to make the request directly to a staff member -- it seems like the pt wasn't directly requesting it yet, per the article.