Databases and religious preference

758f91d92cf0b004af1c0a392c3346b1This is kind of a side note, but a scenario from my surgery admission keeps coming to mind.

Since surgery of any kind is generally viewed as a potentially life-threatening activity, on admission they ask you a lot of questions about advanced directives and all that sort of stuff. I currently have one in place, in fact, so a lot of those questions were answered simply by putting that on file. But there were two questions that stuck with me.

One was “Do you have a religious preference?” My answer was “Yes, I’m an atheist.” Notably, that wasn’t a choice in the drop-down menu of religious preferences. Nor was there a “none,” which would have been acceptable. So the admitting clerk chose “Other,” which seemed about as close as we could get.

I was then asked if I’d like clergy to be notified, which of course I answered “No.” Okay, actually, what I said was “No, I don’t want anyone praying anywhere near me.”

I know that atheists are a minority, but isn’t a large part of diversity ensuring that all beliefs are accomodated?