This morning’s USA Today had an article about doctors who refuse to treat malpractice attorneys. It contained an exerpt from a letter in which the doctor cites an inability to render objective evaluations about the patient, and advising the patient that he would be able to get much better care…somewhere else.
The article also mentioned a woman who worked at a clinic, but was fired because her husband was a lawyer at a firm that did malpractice litigation.
Now I am certain that this is highly illegal, a violation of civil rights, yadda yadda yadda… I suspect the lawyers will eventually win this one. But I found it comforting that, even for lawyers, there can be consequences.
Perhaps if lawyers find themselves standing in line at the emergency room with the rest of us peasants, we might actually see some real healthcare reform in this country.
Medical “mistakes” kill 100,000 people a year in the U.S. So can we lay the entire blame for the state of the medical malpractice “situation” and the lack of “reform” on the doorstep of lawyers?
Yep, them sneaky doctors: they call them “mistakes” but we know better, don’t we? They actually kill their patients on purpose. They’re just serial killers in white coats, really.
There was an article in the New York Times as well, and maybe others. Something in the air. Anyhow…
*Some * of the instances of docs refusing care to lawyers or their families involved situations where doctors who had been very active in lobbying for malpractice reform/caps on jury awards/etc had been contacted by lawyer-types who had been equally active on the other side of the fence. If the animosity involved in the fight was intense enough there would, actually, be some justification for the doc to refer the potential patient to someone else under conflict of interest concerns. In at least one instance, it was the wife of a prominent malpractice lawyer desiring cosmetic surgery - although the doctor in that instance refused to take her as a patient, he did explain his reasons and referred her to several other local doctors who would not have the same conflicts.
That said - there was also the character who stood up at an AMA meeting and seriously suggested that malpractice lawyers and their families be catagorically denied all but the most urgent emergency care, across the board. THAT was shouted down by the other docs as being unethical.
I’m a med-mal defense attorney and I have doctors that are decidedly uncomfortable about treating me. It’s actually been a problem in the past in that I’m pawned off to other doctors or have had to go through diagnostic tests that I didn’t really need. For instance I had a pain in my side for several weeks with no relief. The first day the doctor saw me he sent me off to the hospital with a referral slip for an ultrasound. In addition to the right lower quadrant pain on the slip indicating the reason why I was getting the ultrasound was a notation: “lawyer.”
I know many doctors that refuse to treat the more prominent Plaintiff med mal attorneys foir non-urgent stuff, but they have to treat them if it’s an urgent situation. But, there are benefits for the doctors that willingly treat the Plaintiff med mal lawyers…they don’t get sued by that lawyer or his friends.
I hardly ever need to see the doctor myself. Usually I just drink a little blood and get to the coffin early, and I’m right as rain by next sundown. I guess the Bad Lord blessed me!
Bravo to the doctors! I can’t WAIT to see Jim Sokolove (“We Can Help”) waiting on a gurney, after his automobile accident. Here’s a possible dialogue"
(TRIAGE NURSE): HOW do you spell your name?
(SOKOLOVE): Grrgggh…bleechh,
(Nurse): “I’m sorry, is that S-U-C-…?”
(SOKOLOVE): “Im dying!”
(NURSE): “Let’s just run down your childhoodi llnesses”
(SOKOLOVE): “I DEMAND to be treated!”
(NURSE): “Is your address 124 Crown Circle”?
I advocate that any malpractice lawyer should have to sign a contract with a doctor, BEFORE being treated!
It’s not just medical malpractice lawyers- six years ago, I went to a dermatologist to have a mole looked at, and the doctor refused to examine me because I’m a lawyer. I am (and was then) a freakin’ public defender. I explained that to him, and told him that my father was a doctor, I had never done and would never do malpractice suits, but he still wouldn’t look at the mole. He did have the good grace to refer me to another dermatologist, which turned out to be a good thing, as the mole was a melanom- I wound up having two surgeries to get all of the cancer.
Also, back in the stone ages, when I was in law school, one of my professors went to the ER with chest pains, and the first doc who saw him pawned him off on another doc because he (the professor) was a lawyer. This was related to my class by the prof, so I didn't see or hear that personally, but have no reason to beleive that it didn't occur.
Of course, they never need the services of proctologists, because…