Doctors, Nurses Striking -- Is It Ethical?

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

This video was recorded days prior to a strike of more than 150 resident physicians at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, New York, who were protesting their low pay. On the third day of the strike, a tentative deal was reached.

Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Recently, some nurses in New York City went on strike for a few days and two big hospitals here had walkouts.

Other things are taking place in the healthcare labor marketplace. Residents at the University of Pennsylvania Health System have decided to unionize. They had a vote and they're going in that direction. There have been labor walkouts in England throughout the National Health Service. Other unions are threatening nurses to go out in California and Arizona later this year.

It's not the first time that people have gone on strike in healthcare, but I think it's a growing phenomenon. Many healthcare workers, doctors, and nurses are starting to feel overworked, understaffed, and unhappy when, say, private equity takes over a rural hospital and begins to put in schedules or cut back on staffing, which the healthcare workforce thinks is dangerous to patients.