Physicians' strikes and Jewish law.

In 1975, writing about the immorality of a strike by resident physicians (housestaff) in New York City,1 I pointed out that "for a physician to strike, for whatever reason, is unconscionable and totally contrary to every standard. of medical ethics and morality." Although sympathetic to the demands of the housestaff, I argued that to leave patients without direct medical assistance and attendance put the striking physicians in an W1tenable moral position.