Foul mouthed NZ Surgeon Blasts Fat Patient

[madanthonywayne]

A New Zealand Surgeon has been reprimanded for using fowl language in speaking with a patient.

Patients are required to go on a diet before gastric bypass surgery to get down to a safe weight for surgery and to demonstrate that they're serious about losing weight before undergoing dangerous surgery.

The patient in question refused to even use the term "diet". The surgeon became frustrated with her and said, "You are going on a f---ing diet".

In her complaint, the patient says the surgeon went on to say, "if I couldn't handle the word diet then he challenged my motivation and stated that I would never survive surgery because I was still bullshitting myself and therefore my thinking was still f---ed".

The doctor ended up scratching the woman from the waiting list for surgery citing the lack of a "therapeutic relationship"

While his language was inappropriate, his point was completely valid. A woman unwilling to even utter the word diet lacks the proper motivation to deal with a process like gastric bypass surgery.

Read the article here.

 

[spidergoat]

Got Drudge? How is this news?

 

[WillNever]

In my opinion, this is not an example of unethical practice. Gastric bypass (in the USA at least) is regarded as an elective surgery, meaning it is designed to solve a nonacute problem. Refusing to admit her for surgery on the basis of patient noncompliance (which is what he should have cited her for) is not a violation of patient autonomy. That is why I see no violation of ethical values here.

 

[Tiassa]

Nutshells and more

While his language was inappropriate, his point was completely valid.

That's pretty much the whole thing in a nutshell.

I mean, to the one, even on our side of the Pacific, we run into this. People won't listen if you ask politely, so you drop a shock to get their attention and they cry about it. In a broader sense, I would say this is a major contributing factor to the rising sense of disrespect in several of the world's most prominent societies.

To the other, when you're a doctor ...?

My doctor can be gruff. He can dance the line between brutally honest and honestly brutal. But he also knows how to get what he wants without falling into a temper trap. I adore my doctor.

He would have explained that it was medically irresponsible—and even actionable—if he leapt straight to surgery. He would then have referred the patient to a nutritionist to discuss a "preparatory regimen", and if she refused, he would have referred her to a psychologist, explaining that surgery won't change a thing for the better and might actually increase the patient's long-term risk of danger and death if certain behavioral issues were not addressed beforehand.

He won't kill her on the table, and he won't substantially increase her risk of suicide or other behavioral complications that could result in post-operative trauma or death. (e.g., Stuffing food down her gullet as a means of suppressing an underlying psychological issue; gastric bypass won't fix that, and she eventually might rupture her stomach.)

 

[visceral_instinct]

I agree with him, and I don't blame him for being uncouth, he's a human being too.