Eye doc may lose license after calling patient fat

[Clear Blue Sky]

How's this for bedside manner...

http://www.newsobserver.com/116/story/202679.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Uncertain that's the optimum penalty for that.

I could understand a duty to warn of secondary manifestations from obesity such as diabetes and high blood pressure as well as danger to a fetus, but I'm uncertain a choice of words such as "fat" would warrant taking away someone's medical license. Obese versus fat. Same message essentially with the latter taking on a somewhat judgmental tone.

[BR_Parkway]

2. such a short article, why didn't you post it all here?

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A North Carolina doctor could lose his medical license after a patient complained he made cutting criticisms, including telling her she was fat. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported the North Carolina Medical Board will decide if Dr. Earl Sunderhaus of Asheville overstepped the bounds of professional decency.

The eye doctor's patient complained Sunderhaus poked her thigh and told her she is fat, and also scolded her as irresponsible for being unemployed and relying on taxpayers to pay for another pregnancy.

Sunderhaus admitted he told the patient that her thick thighs and diabetes could cause her to go blind.

He made his points again by writing the patient, Gov. Beverly Perdue and blasting the medical board.

[noamnety]

6. Thanks - the headline was misleading

I assume it wasn't for calling her fat so much as "poking her in the thigh" to demonstrate the fatness (to show her how much it jiggled?!!), and being a fundie rightwing ass about being unemployed while pregnant.

I hope his loses his license.

[imdjh]

3. She either is or she isn't. As I understand it, truth is always a defense.

[noamnety]

7. Not in this case.

There's a difference between informing someone they are overweight and it could cause side effects), and an eye doctor groping or poking someone in the thigh as a medical procedure to show them how fat they are.

[peekaloo]

4. Do not ask this guy for a second opinion.

[Gwendolyn]

5. Nothing he told her was false.

Just not his place to say so. The man is also 77 years old and perhaps it's time he retired.

For what it's worth, my much younger optometrist used to tell me with such disgust how the make up I wore on my eyes was akin to picking up dirt off the sidewalk and wiping it on my face. :)