http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/4993985.htm
should doctors be automatically not eligible for jury duty?
In the above article, while the MD has a serious arrogance problem, why make his patients suffer because of it?
You can always get out of jury duty for undue hardship, extreme inconvienience, public necessity, etc. etc. No court is going to make a brain surgeon with a major operation scheduled the next day serve. But just because he’s busy? Heck, everybody’s busy.
in the UK at present doctors are automatically exempt from jury duty.
on the basis that their patients deserve continuity of care and from the doctor of their choice.
i’m pretty sure that it’s a pretty fair system.
Yeah, it’s tough when something as banal as jury duty interrupts that important “pharmaceutical seminar” in Cancun or that “research project” in Vail, CO, or the obligatory paper presentation in Pebble Beach.
Anyway, it’s been years since I’ve seen a “lone wolf” physician in practice around here. Don’t they travel in packs nowadays? You’re telling me that nobody in the whole practice is going to cover Dr. Important’s patients while he’s away?:rolleyes:
do you like being treated by YOUR physician, or would you be happy with anyone assigned to you?
and what about doctors working for public hospitals? then your taxes go to paying the slary of the doc on jury duty, and the locum to cover them, and meanwhile patient care goes down the tubes.
irishgirl - often, with HMOs, the patient has to see whichever physician is available in the office, whether or not it’s their “usual” GP.
Just FYI
But my physician is not always available (of course, this may be more true in the US than the UK) but even there - don’t physicians go on vacation? need to tend to other patients? get sick themselves and need to take the day off? have family members get sick and stay home to care for them? sleep occasionally?
The reality of the matter is that a person’s physician is not always going to be there whenever the person wants to see them. I don’t see how an absence due to jury duty is any different from an absence due to a grandmother’s funeral from the patient’s perspective. (Though they obviously differ greatly for the physician) The physician still is not there, no matter how much the patient wants to see that particular physician.
Hell, I like jury duty! I just never get picked. I’ve been called twice, took time out of my practice, showed up, hung around, got questioned, and got dropped like a hot potato when I said I was a physician. NOT because my time was so valuable (it frequently is, for purposes of patient access to health care, but never mind that). No, they didn’t want a physician who might have his own opinion about the “expert testimony” they’d be presenting.
Is it a poor use of my time? Well, I am a state employee, so I’ll get paid my usual and customary by said state while I’m at jury duty, as long as I sign over my juror salary to the state. But the state gets more bang for their buck if I’m seeing patients. When I’m off, the patients just have to wait, unless it’s an emergency. I get to them when I’m able.
BTW, I think the physician in this case acted like a dork.
I think his patients are already suffering due to his arrogance problem. They could use a break while he’s in the can.
My experience parallels Qadgop’s - willing to serve but blackballed.
Maybe as a prospective juror I shouldn’t have responded to the defense attorney’s question about presumption of innocence with:
“I think they’re all guilty…guilty…GUILTY!!!”
Likewise. Allowed to defer once because of undue hardship on the practice (partner had scheduled vacation) but next time took off and was not chosen … don’t know if it was the doctor stuff or pegged me as a liberal “egghead” with a bow tie. It is hard on a practice to be possibly away but probably not and unable to schedule, but, no duh, that’s hard for anyone with a real job.
What an arrogant asshole. He deserves to rot just for being such a complete kneebiter.