Opinion: Emergency department physicians should have the right to due process protection. Many don’t
Your doctor should be your biggest advocate, doing what Ming Lin, an emergency medicine physician in Washington state, did at the peak of the Covid-19 surge in March: advocating for safer conditions in the emergency department where he worked, more testing for Covid-19, and better personal protective equipment and triage processes to keep patients and staff safe.
Instead he was fired. PeaceHealth, the health system that owned the hospital, said “his actions were disruptive, compromised collaboration […] and contributed to the creation of fear and anxiety.” Lin had no opportunity to defend himself and no legal protection because of who he worked for — which wasn’t the hospital or the health system.
