Re: A rant and a poll
From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Sat May 20 13:08:56 2006
I would ask the patient to come to the office for a "frank and open
discussion."
Art
At Sat, 20 May 2006, Anna Meenan, MD wrote:
>
>Just need to blow off steam and wondering how everyone else stands on a
>question.
>
>The background: Working in outreach clinic yesterday. Positive
>chlamydia test on a patient who's been positive twice before. In fact,
>she's 20 weeks and has never been negative yet in this pregnancy (been
>treated appropriately and recommended to get partner(s) treated). She
>had an appointment that day so we planned to talk to her then. She
>no-shows (3rd time this pregnancy). My medical
>assistant/receptionist/lab/translator, who obviously has nothing better
>to do with her time, calls all of the phone numbers this pt. has given
>us at various times and cannot reach her at any of them, most having
>been disconnected. A pt. who would be an in-law of hers if any of them
>were married, and who has come in together with her on other occasions,
>has an appointment and does show up. Assistant asks her if there is any
>other way to contact pt. #1. She says she will contact her and have
>her call us, which she did. Pt#1 calls back and screams at my assistant
>that she should not involve pt.#2 in her affairs. Assistant is very
>diplomatic, in spite of the fact that Pt. is screaming so loud I can
>hear every word from across the room. We arrange to get pt. treated
>again but the question now arises as to whether we should call in an Rx
>for her partner. Listening to her abusive tirade from across the room
>and recalling a commercial I had seen on TV just the night before
>(malpractice lawyer soliciting pts who had ever had Stevens-Johnson or
>TEN and had ever taken Vioxx, Celebrex, ibuprofen, Clinoril, or
>ZITHROMAX), I declined to phone in an Rx for FOB, who i have never met,
>based on the attitude of pt.#1 and the knowledge that this is obviously
>one person who will sue me at the drop of a hat if anything goes wrong.
>There is a clinic right in town that will treat partners on a
>sliding-scale fee basis, so access is not a problem for FOB.
>
>So what would y'all do in this situation?
>
>--
>Anna Meenan, MD
>
--
art fougner, md
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