Asymmetry

A patient has the right to choose the kind of doctor he or she sees. That is, a woman can ask for a female (or male) gynecologist. For cultural reasons, a patient may request to be seen by a doctor of a particular ethnicity. That makes sense. A patient's body, health, and illness are incredibly private things, and they should have some control over who sees them.

On the other hand, a doctor cannot refuse to see a particular kind of patient. We cannot limit our practices to a particular religion or gender or race. That makes sense too. Discriminating based on such divisions would be highly unethical. Everyone deserves medical attention and care regardless of their demographic labels.

Both of these arguments seem sound and nearly incontrovertible. Yet they create this dynamic of asymmetry which is very interesting to me. Can we find some philosophic justification of first principles for this? That is, can both these ideas in medical care be derived from one higher level principle? I haven't put too much thought into this, but it is certainly worth contemplating.