You know, I went into the profession knowing that I would have to put aside some of my preferences and ideals aside in order to care for people that are different than I am. In essence, it goes with the territory, and I made that sacrifice to do something I love doing: caring for people. It really burns my balls that people would get off the hook for their beliefs because they are in-line with a currently politically popular religion (fundamentalist Christians) while so many people of other ethnic backgrounds, religions, beliefs have had to make harder choices for decades.

It's also been discussed so many times before: once you start making exceptions for some people then to be fair you'll have to make exceptions to the point where system falls apart. But even then it's still not fair, because some people require less costly exceptions than others. Or you end up with an over-encumbered system that doesn't work for anyone.

Seems like we've already sort of came up with the solution: you should know what you're getting into before going into it and be willing to make those sacrifices. Hopefully your colleagues would cut you some slack and you can return the favor, but ultimately patients should not have to suffer lack of care t the expense of the beliefs of their caregivers.