Fat people can't work at Texas hospital

Um, I'm guessing his standing skills are a lot less relevant than his cutting skills. I'm guessing a person that obese can still stand, though doing cartwheels is probably out.

Bottom line: this hospital's bright idea is a bunch of pernicious crap.

 

As regards this controversy, keep in mind that surgeons don't typically work for the hospital and nurses (and the rest of the staff) do.

 

Gotcha. Still doesn't really change my point.

 

Just pointing out that this policy won't affect the doctors, only the nurses and other staff. Still's pretty dumb, if you ask me. (The policy, I mean).

 

I would be willing to wager a lot of money on the idea that I have been turned down for jobs in my life because I am overweight.

As soon as you walk into a job interview, they see that extra weight and will make their decision right there without you saying one word.

 

Yeah, unfortunately in some instances, you have to be clearly better, because you don't want it to go to a tiebreaker.

 

My wife is a critical-care nurse, and the amount of stamina and strength it takes to work a code and muscle largely-comatose patients would surprise you.

I can't speak for other types of nursing, but what she does is not for the obese or the physically weak.

 

Yeah, so if you were an Olympic heavyweight lifter, don't ever expect to be a critical-care nurse.

 

Good heavens, no wonder the unemployment rate in America is so darn high.

 

If they impose that rule in media organizations, the whole profession will die even quicker than it already is.

 

I'm with bigpern23 on this.

It is not discrimination -- OK, so maybe it is, but it isn't overt. Instead, it is a choice the hospital is making about whom it will hire, and that is a choice the hospital has a right to uphold.

For better or for worse, it is a hiring decision, and many factors go into such things. The hospital can hire whomever it decides it wants/needs. That won't always be fair or correct, or the right thing to do, but it still can be done.

Morbid obesity has deleterious effects on much more than a care-giver's perceived ability to "get through" to patients. It effects everything, on even more direct and basic and important levels: how well a person breathes, how much strength and/or energy a person possesses, the ability to run/work as quickly as possible in, say, a code-blue situation; how much/how easily a person sweats (thus imparting germs in what is supposed to be a health-care setting); even a person's speech, which can be impacted by prevailing breathlessness; and his or her ability to sleep when desperately needed (for their own and patients' sakes and safety) after the characteristically long, potentially stressful shifts inherent in hospitals thanks to sleep apnea that is almost always present and usually quite serious in morbidly obese people.

Getting through to people concerning weight-related issues would be the least of a morbidly obese person's potential problems in a health-care job. Indeed, he or she might actually be able to relate better than most with patients struggling with such issues.

Obesity is a tough, tough, complicated issue. I know, because it's been a nearly life-long one for me, someone who has undergone gastric-bypass surgery, who, with that help, lost, and has worked hard to keep off, more than 140 extra pounds. I've lived these issues, I still fight them, and I'm not unsympathetic to or unaware of them.

And, although I am not in favor of charging double to overweight airline passengers, for example, because that is a service thing, not something like a hiring decision, there are legitimate work-related concerns besides patients' perception that this hospital has a right to address as it sees fit.