Because nurses and doctors aren’t lawyers, and have different concerns that justify and limit anti-testimonial privilege.

To illustrate, consider who should do what if a person approaches them while covered in someone else’s blood and viscera.

• the spouse and should be free to offer comfort and advice in what was definitely a traumatic situation.
• the priest should be able to take confession without regard to temporal concern.
• the lawyer will need to start preparing a criminal defense
• the doctor and nurse should be able to heal their wounds, but also really should wonder if there’s someone else out there in need

I absolutely won’t defend the current system where patients need to be lawyers to know when they should lie to their doctors. Or where the CDC can’t say *warning, DomeGuy has COVID!" but the DA can demand my doctor tattle on my prescriptions.