What would she sue him for? Is she claiming he caused her anguish and mental suffering? And I don’t see how offering her a Bible and offering names of religious counseling services is judging her, her lifestyle choices, and her character.
Frankly, I wouldn’t like it either if a doctor suggested I find God but I think taking legal action is rather overdoing it. I would have just given him a piece of my mind and then walked out. But unfortunately, yes, in this country if she can find a greedy lawyer (no, they are not all greedy) to represent her, she can sue whoever she wants for whatever reason she wants. Whether she gets it past a preliminary hearing is another matter.
There are also an increasing number of conventional medical practitioners performing acupuncture. For whatever reason, it does seem to be be effective in some cases, although the mechanism for its operation is not yet understood.
Medicine does not exist in a vacuum. Being non-judgemental is an important ideal. But if I see a three pack-a-day smoker with worsening lung disease, I’m going to discuss the importance of cutting down on cigarettes. I’d try not to sermonize, and I may not expect much change. But it would come up. But I don’t think I’m doing the patient a favour by ignoring the issue altogether, even if you think I’m “judging” the patient. Doctors don’t always need to condone unhealthy lifestyles, and they are not breaking the law by commenting on them. Nor does this always explicitly involve character judgements.
I did a one month elective in methadone maintenance during my residency. I found the patient population there to be considerably more manipulative and demanding then the average patient population. It is not uncommon for these patients to demand higher doses, other drugs, higher carries. These have a solid place when trust has been established between patient and physician through time and compliance. I’m a big believer in methadone and have seen good results with buprenorphine as well. But I’d have to know a lot more about your friend before I, as her doctor, would give her what she wants merely because she asks for it – I do not see the role of the doctor to blindly give the patient all they ask for.
That said, I agree her religion would seem to be completely irrelevant to the discussion. The doctor does indeed sound judgmental, perhaps unprofessional. But it is easy to condemn physicians on the basis of half the story, if you know what I mean.
The italics is my emphasis. By doing that, wont it constitute a blackmail /threat / harassment ? When you ask someone for an apology and say there are consequences if you don’t get it - is that blackmail/threat/harassment ?
BTW, methadone is not impossible to go off cold turkey as was claimed. Its just very, very difficult. But it can be managed. I’m caring for a patient right now who went off methadone 120 mg a day cold turkey (i.e. no other opiates, only clonidine to reduce side effects) 3 weeks ago, and is managing.
I don’t see anything legitimately actionable in what the doc did. Perhaps inappropriate, but we don’t know the full story.
To wander off the topic a little bit, I was actually going to start a thread on acupuncture.
I’ve got a real serious sinus problem, where I’m allergic to pretty much anything along the lines of fur, dust and fluff (basically the environment and I start sneezing like a maniac and it is hard to remember a day in my life where I sneezed, say, less, than a dozen times in one day.
I’ve been going to a local acupuncturist for about one year and the results have been nothing short of miraculous. I can now go upto 6 or 7 weeks without sneezing or sniffling and it has truly improved the quality of my life.
I’m not trying to promote this particular medical science or anything, I just wanted to share my experiences with it.
If anyone’s interested in acupuncture, here’s a link:
andy_fl, no, it’s not.
It’s giving him a chance to apologise and end it there.
Better than going over his head without allowing him to make amends first, no?
Doctors are “professional” in that the occupation maintains itself through peer review. Most state and/or local medical associations have a complaint process which will allow the other doctors in your community to review the issue and determine if the suggestion was appropriate.
That said, the suggestion was not malpractice (IMHO) in that no damage was done or would have been done if your friend followed the doctor’s advice. The doctor simply gave an opinion and your friend rejected it.
The simple fact of the matter is, doctors are (gasp!) people, too. Sometimes their opinions and priorities seeps into their professional life, just like everyone else. Hell, my (former) FP kept talking about when I want to have a baby even when I’d told her we weren’t having kids. She also wouldn’t give me the birth control option I preferred because she medically didn’t think it was a good idea.
That leads me to another possibility in this case. The results of medical research can be ambiguous a lot of the time, so doctors have to make their own judgement calls about which treatments work best, which ones the benefits outweigh the risks, etc. This doc may think, in his professional opinion, that buprenorphine and other treatments either don’t work very well, or that the risks outweigh the benefits.
Also, for most doctors, when an admitted drug addict comes in asking for a specific painkiller, big red lights and buzzers go off. Too many addicts who aren’t trying to get clean try to pull that one for doctors to just assume your friend’s telling the truth. Especially on a first visit.
If your friend is uncomfortable seeing this doctor again, she needs to switch primary care providers, and let this guy know why she’s doing it.
As regards threatening to report him to the medical board if he doesn’t apologize, I’m afraid I have to come down on the side of blackmail. Either something is bad enough to be reported to the medical board, or it’s not. The medical board isn’t a forum to say, “I don’t like this person”; it’s to look into potential malpractice and breaches of professional ethics. Filing complaints because someone upset you and didn’t apologize is, IMO, frivolous and a waste of the board’s time and resources.
No, it isn’t, as irishgirl has already said. It isn’t blackmail unless the action being threatened is unlawful. Thus, “do what I say or I’ll break your legs” = blackmail. But “do what I say or I’ll tell your licensing board/see you in court/hold my breath 'til I turn blue”: not blackmail.
I don’t think this complaint sounds like blackmail, but on the basis of the limited info we have it sounds gratuitious. By all means, complain if you feel sufficently strongly about this. In Ontario, the college would be required to investigate such a complaint.
