State of NH investigates doctor for telling patient she's obese

[AlanM]

By the way, I felt a general sense of illness the other day, so I talked to the general manager of the general store in town. He suggested I see my doctor, a general practitioner, who suggested a procedure which included general anesthesia. Should I have been checking military credentials??

Generally speaking, yes. But it is not a major problem if you don't. By the way, that was an admiral use of general terms. 

[tracysaboe]

In NH, she is appointed by the Governor with the approval of the Executive Council.

I think after the Executive council aproves it, the legislature should have some check on it too. Like the Senate.  not that i'm in favor of changing the State Constitution, but what do you think, wouldn't that make things even more difficult for government to get things done? (Which would be good for government to not be able to get things done IMHO.)

Tracy

[lildog]

Next we'll see doctors who are afraid to tell people they are fat slobs and need to shed a few pounds being sued by people who end up with medical problems tied to their weight.

[GT]

Next we'll see doctors who are afraid to tell people they are fat slobs and need to shed a few pounds being sued by people who end up with medical problems tied to their weight.

And then the gravitationaly challenged will sue the same doctor for not telling them they should have lost the weight years ago......

[mvpel]

New Hampshire Administrative Rule 501.02(h) codifies the principles of medical ethics into the state's medical licensing system:

I. A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.

There is a "compassionate" way to advise someone as to the best way to care for their own health, and a callous and abusive way.  "You're going to outlive your husband and you won't be able to find another man," he said?  WTH is that??

A doctor's fat patient knows they're fat, since they're the one who's carrying around the weight every single day and looking at it in the mirror every morning.

And they also know something from personal experience that this doctor apparently doesn't know - that Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers don't work to change someone's body type and metabolism, hence their roughly 5% long-term success rate.

Compassionate doctors need to get beyond their arrogant high-school stereotypes about overweight people, and their self-righteous bombast about it, if they're going to really understand the problems faced by their overweight patients and help them overcome them.

[mvpel]

Next we'll see doctors who are afraid to tell people they are fat slobs and need to shed a few pounds being sued by people who end up with medical problems tied to their weight.

Or what about the doctors who can't see past a patient's extra pounds to an underlying serious medical problem unrelated to their weight?  That's a far more common problem.

[mvpel]

Found this, too:

====
... NIH National Task Force on Prevention and Treatment of Obesity, published in 2002 in American Family Physician (65:81-88):

?Patient concerns about being disparaged by physicians and/or medical staff because of their weight may also be an issue in the lack of preventative services for obese patients, because this fear may decrease patients? willingness to seek medical care.?

?Weighing patients who are overweight and obese demands particular sensitivity. Some patients report avoiding medical care because of fears of being weighed and because of their concerns about negative comments that are sometimes made?If the physician believes that the patient?s condition is caused or exacerbated by weight, the physician should ask the patient if he or she would like to discuss weight. Sensitivity in word choice may also be helpful. Patients may respond extremely negatively to use of the term obesity, but may be more amenable to discussion of their difficulties with weight or being overweight. When weighing is appropriate, it is helpful to do so in a private area (if the scale is in a hallway, a screen or curtain can be used) and to record the weight without comment.?
====

[Friday]

There is a "compassionate" way to advise someone as to the best way to care for their own health, and a callous and abusive way.  "You're going to outlive your husband and you won't be able to find another man," he said?  WTH is that??

Yeah. On the surface it seems like a ridiculous story. But what I heard on the radio is that what the doctor actually said to the patient was "Who's ever going to want you? A black guy?" Kinda makes you wonder if the doctor provides equal treatment to all of his patients...

[Russell Kanning]

That guy could have very few patients very quickly

[tracysaboe]

There is a "compassionate" way to advise someone as to the best way to care for their own health, and a callous and abusive way.  "You're going to outlive your husband and you won't be able to find another man," he said?  WTH is that??

Yeah. On the surface it seems like a ridiculous story. But what I heard on the radio is that what the doctor actually said to the patient was "Who's ever going to want you? A black guy?" Kinda makes you wonder if the doctor provides equal treatment to all of his patients...

So what if he doesn't? That's about Freedom of Association. If he wants to be that way, it's none of the government's business. (Although his business will go under fairly soon.)

Tracy

[Pat McCotter]

Clients fight for dr. who called patient fat

By Karen Dandurant
kdandurant@seacoastonline.com



PORTSMOUTH ? Rochester physician Terry Bennett, under investigation because he told a patient she was fat, is receiving support from his patients.

Patients started a Web site, www.havenotsfordrbennett.com. On the site are letters of support and outrage at the actions of the Medicine Review Board.

Bennett said the board is also resurrecting a claim that has already been deemed unfounded. With nowhere to appeal, he is calling for a state overview board that can monitor the actions of state agencies.

Bennett said Rochester state Sen. Richard Green plans to introduce legislation for an oversight committee on elected and appointed officials.

"Plus, I apologized directly to her and to every camera," said Bennett of his patient. "I don?t mean to be offensive. I mean to be educational. I only wanted to get her to think about the only life you have, using fact-based evidence."

Bennett said he will insist his hearing be open.

"They have abused my civil rights at every turn," said Bennett. "Since this happened, I have been on CNN, ?Good Morning America? and the ?Today Show? with another patient, Melinda Haney. This is a compelling story of an abusive government that is un-monitored."

Haney wrote to Gov. John Lynch and joined other patients in filing a complaint to the New Hampshire Supreme Court Attorney Discipline Office.

Haney said the patients will contact the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union because they also feel that Bennett?s civil rights have been violated.

In her letter, Haney blasts state Attorney General Kelley Ayotte and Catherine Bernhard of the Medicine Review Board for what she calls a "kangaroo court."

"So this Office of the AG?s job is to investigate people, tear their lives apart, exempt from all laws while doing it?" asked Haney. "They file charges, take people to court, which they themselves run. They play prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner and if the person they are investigating doesn?t like it, they appeal to who? Oh yeah, no one."

Bennett, who said he is not a person who rolls over easily, refused an offer by the review board that he attend a medical education course and acknowledge that he made a mistake.

"They threaten providers with a hearing at a cost of $50,000 at least," said Bennett. "You don?t get to face your accuser. If you don?t demand an open hearing, they run it behind closed doors where the rules of evidence may not apply. This is a witch hunt."

Haney said Bennett helped her lose 150 pounds.

"I?ve been angry and left his practice," said Haney. "But, once you think about it, you?re angry at yourself, not Dr. Bennett. He?s the messenger. He?s telling you what you already know."

A letter from psychologist John Brown Jr. mentions disciplinary actions against Bernhard and attacks he has watched her make, unjustly in his opinion, on other medical professionals.

Another letter asks why Dr. Jim Clifford sits on the board when he has been on the other end of numerous complaints.

In 1996, Clifford was fired by Frisbie Memorial Hospital. A wrongful termination lawsuit filed by Clifford indicates he was fired after complaints about his treatment of patients were received by the hospital.

Clifford contended that he was fired for raising concerns about a physician who was kept on staff after being sent to a drug rehabilitation program.

A settlement agreement was reached in 1998.

[GT]

The latest on the case

http://gamma.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=bb27608c-c20a-44f0-8c9f-d0e8c17a8d82

[Pat McCotter]

"He also pointed to his work as the bin Laden family doctor in Saudi Arabia and his practice there as further evidence that he's multicultural."

Doctor's obesity 'diatribe' detailed
Bennett says he was taken out of context 

By ANNE RUDERMAN
Monitor staff
December 24. 2005 8:00AM

The woman who filed a complaint with the state board of medicine, alleging that Dr. Terry Bennett said she was so fat only a "black guy" might like her, just got the standard version of "Dr. Bennett's diatribe on obesity," Bennett said in an interview this week. He said the quote included in her complaint condensed his philosophy and took it out of context.

Bennett, who runs his own family practice in Rochester, said he delivers the same speech to all of his overweight female patients, warning them that not only their health, but their personal lives are at stake if they do not tackle their weight problem. The talk and the logic behind it, according to Bennett, go like this:

Overweight men are much more likely to die than overweight women, so an overweight woman married to an overweight man risks being an early widow. American men "don't like obese women,"Bennett said - except one group: African-American men. But because there's a general dearth of single middle-aged African-American men in New Hampshire, the woman is likely to end up on her own.

"Black men are the only males that don't have a strong anti-obesity preference," he said. "They mostly grow up in fatherless households where they are surrounded by big, loving women, and they talk about fat as sugar."

Bennett said his logic is racial - the way medical issues like diabetes can be linked to race - and not racist.

"The notion that a black person would find you attractive while a white person of the same age and same gender would not, that's a fact," he said. "If you are going to pick that apart and charge that statement is racist, I subject that you are the racist."
Bennett has been charged with professional misconduct after a 2004 complaint accused him of berating a woman for being overweight and another complaint accused him of telling another woman her medical situation was so hopeless she should buy a gun and kill herself. His case is currently before the Board of Medicine, which is weighing a motion to dismiss.

In the obesity complaint, Bennett is quoted as saying: "If your husband were to die tomorrow -who would want you? . . . Well, men might want you, but not the types that you want to want you -Might even be a black guy!"

But Bennett said that quote condensed his speech into a sentence and didn't give it the broad context it deserves. He said he didn't treat the woman any differently than he treats any of his overweight female patients -which is to take a hard line.

"Everyone else in the practice who's an obese female gets the same lecture. This woman was looking to be offended and get out of the situation. . . . We call this denial," he said.

Bennett said that his argument about men not wanting overweight women is backed up by research and said the "Technicolor" nature of his Rochester practice supports the idea that he is not a racist. He also pointed to his work as the bin Laden family doctor in Saudi Arabia and his practice there as further evidence that he's multicultural.

"If I was such a prejudiced person why did I have 50,000 charts in Saudi Arabia? They were all brown," he said.

But the Rev. Arthur Hilson, a leader in the African-American community in Portsmouth, said Bennett was perpetuating old cultural stereotypes of African Americans, such as the "mammy"image of the "heavyset woman with a bandana wrapped around her head." Moreover, Hilson said, he didn't understand what the place of race was in a question of a woman's weight and her health.

"Black women come in all sizes and shapes, just like white women and Asian women," he said. "If the issue is health and weight, what do black people or black men's preference have to do with health?"

New Hampshire NAACP coordinator Fred Ross's suggestion was even more straightforward "Maybe he needs to be sent to a school for tact and diplomacy. That's a lot of hooey."

Although the motion to dismiss is still pending, Bennett and his supporters - the "Have Nots for Dr. Bennett"- won a small victory last week when the Merrimack County Superior Court ruled that the Board of Medicine could not make as many of its meetings closed to the public. Bennett has also applied to be the state medical director.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Sounds like the guy has a screw loose, which is what I look for when seeking out a healthcare professional.

[CNHT]

Sounds like the guy has a screw loose, which is what I look for when seeking out a healthcare professional.

I guess freedom of speech wins out. I only hope that doctors don't ignore real symptoms when they are prejudicially judging patients like that. (You know, like ignoring a cold you've had for months that won't go away and blaming it on 'unhappiness' or something) There are some doctors who are pretty ignorant.

No gag for doctor, judge says
By GARRY RAYNO
Union Leader Staff


Concord ? A Merrimack County Superior Court judge ordered the Board of Medicine to stop disciplinary proceedings against Dr. Terry Bennett, the Rochester doctor who came under fire for comments that offended three patients.

?The court ruled resoundingly in my favor. Not a bad birthday present,? said Bennett, who celebrated his 68th birthday yesterday.

Judge Edward Fitzgerald?s June 30 ruling said the Rochester doctor?s constitutional rights to free speech and due process were violated by the board. The judge said the board?s regulations are not drawn narrowly enough to protect free speech, so the board is not entitled to regulate speech at all.

The complaints included charges that Bennett ?stunned, shocked, embarrassed (and) humiliated? a woman by telling her she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men. In 2001, a female patient said he suggested she shoot herself to end her suffering. The third complaint came from a woman who said she was offended by Bennett?s comments on how her son might have contracted hepatitis.

?While the Court does not in any way condone the type of comments made by the petitioner, it is nonetheless important, as a general matter, to ensure that physicians and patients are free to discuss matters relating to health without fear of government reprisal, even if such discussions may sometimes be harsh, rude or offensive to the listener,? Fitzgerald wrote.

Bennett?s attorney, Benjamin King of the Concord law firm of Douglas, Leonard & Garvey, said yesterday ?each of the pending complaints concern the content of speech. The absence of narrowly tailored regulations, renders the prosecution of any of the complaints constitutionally improper. We?re very pleased to have vindicated Dr. Bennett?s constitutional rights.?

The board had scheduled a disciplinary hearing several times this spring, but postponed action until the court ruled on Bennett?s request for an injunction.

Penny Taylor, administrator for the Board of Medicine, said they had just received the court order yesterday.

?We?d have to talk to the board attorney to see what the next step is,? she said.

Assistant Attorney General Elyse Alkalay, who represented the board, told The Associated Press she is reviewing the ruling and expects it will be several days before a decision is made whether to appeal.

?The board has a 10-day window here and we?ll see if they appeal this and waste your and my tax dollars. They have never understood the limits of their power,? Bennett said.

At some point, Bennett said he plans to sue everyone involved for ?malicious prosecution.?

?It?s been a devastating and infuriating two years; it cost me $50,000 and I had to explain to my crying 10-year-old daughter why everybody hates her father,? he said. ?I don?t forget stuff like that.?

In his ruling, Fitzgerald writes "the Court finds that the regulations under which the petitioner is charged are impermissibly vague because they do not provide a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct is prohibited. The statute, rule and principle relied upon by the Board give only general descriptions of what is expected of physicians."

The board?s attorney argued persons in licensed professions do so subject to the regulations of the licensing boards and do not have the same free speech rights as those outside licensed professions, but the court rejected the argument.

?The Court does not agree that the decision by a person to subject him or herself to the regulations of licensed professions necessarily limits his or her right to speak freely and, in fact, the Board points to no law in New Hampshire that so holds,? the judge wrote.

The board appealed an earlier Fitzgerald ruling ordering the board to make its decisions in public in Bennett?s case. Fitzgerald reaffirmed his order in February after the board?s attorney asked him to reconsider.

King said the new ruling makes that appeal to the Supreme Court moot because now the board is not authorized to deliberate on any of the complaints against Bennett.