Oh, no big deal...just an awesome national radio host commenting on my Facebook status. |
Anyway. So when I get in the car after school, my radio is still set to the adult contemporary station that plays Bob & Sheri. In the afternoon, they play The John Tesh Radio Show. At first I hated it, but then I realized that it's like The USA Today of radio shows. He's always got some interesting factoids for my drive home; like the 5 things employers say will get you the job, or whatever. He also has a lot of relationship advice, and I like to compare his advice with what I'm actually doing. Just the other day he taught me what guys consider to be the perfect amount of PDA (a quick kiss on the lips, FYI) as well as how they prefer to hold hands (interlocked fingers as opposed to palm-to-palm). Thanks, John.
So I'm listening to John yesterday when he tells me some story about a doctor refusing to see a female patient because she weighs 200 pounds. He talked about how it was actually legal for the doctor to do that and why some doctors are refusing to see "obese" (although I don't think 200 pounds is obese). And in case you were wondering, he seemed a bit appalled by the story. I've been thinking about that story and thought I'd write about it. But then I went to find a link and realized that this all went down in August 2012.
John was trying to act like this just happened. Now I feel as though I can't gripe about it because it's not particularly recent. So first I was irritated at this doctor, and now I'm irritated at John Tesh. Whether or not I stay mad at him hinges completely on what advice he gives me tomorrow. And just in case you want closure on the whole doctor issue, here we go:
This doctor is now turning away patients over a certain weight because [allegedly] members of her staff were getting injured assisting these patients. She refers them to a nearby hospital that has some special center for obesity or something. I cannot imagine how mortifying it would be if I were to be turned away from a doctor because I'm overweight. As though I don't have enough of a complex about that anyway. And although 200 pounds isn't skinny, it's not what most average people would consider to be obese.
In my mind, obese is a lot bigger than 200 pounds. And, they made no mention of how tall the woman is. If she's really tall, she's going to be heavier to begin with. So maybe she's really tall and just a bit overweight. What about a 200 pound man? Would they turn away a man that size? It's the same amount of weight, just in a different distribution.
I will say that John Tesh made some solid points about doctors refusing overweight patients. He pointed out that it takes more time to see overweight patients because it takes longer to examine them and therefore doctors see less patients in a day which equals less money. It's also easier to misdiagnose something in an overweight person so the risk of getting sued is higher and some doctors just don't want to deal with any of that.
So much for that Hippopotamus Oath, as Homer Simpson calls it. Yes, I know it's actually the Hippocratic Oath but I like calling it the Hippopotamus Oath. The whole reason you became a doctor was to help people...turning them away doesn't seem helpful. It's one thing if the person is like 900 pounds and the doctor's office literally doesn't have the proper equipment, etc. but to turn away someone whose weight [in all honesty] probably isn't that much more than a lot of our weights is ridiculous.
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