Doctor doesn't know when to shut up.

[Shockeye]

Obese woman upset MD hurt her feelings

Doctor may face sanction by board

Overweight patients defend his straight talk

Aug. 25, 2005. 06:39 AM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROCHESTER, N.H.—As doctors warn more patients to lose weight, the advice has backfired on one doctor after a woman filed a complaint with the state of New Hampshire saying he was hurtful, not helpful.

Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state.

"I told a fat woman she was obese," Bennett says. "I tried to get her attention," he said. "I told her, `You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.' ''

He says he wrote a letter of apology to the woman when he found out she was offended.

Her complaint, filed about a year ago, was initially investigated by a panel of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, which recommended that Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern.

The board rejected the suggestion in December and asked the attorney general's office to investigate.

Bennett rejected that office's proposal that he attend a medical education course and acknowledge that he made a mistake.

Bruce Friedman, chairman of the board of medicine, said he could not discuss specific complaints.

Assistant Attorney General Catherine Bernhard, who conducted the investigation, also would not comment, citing state law that complaints are confidential until the board takes disciplinary action.

The board's website says disciplinary sanctions can range from a reprimand to revocation of all rights to practice in the state.

"Physicians have to be professional with patients and remember everyone is an individual. You should not be inflammatory or degrading to anyone," said board member Kevin Costin.

Other overweight patients have come to Bennett's defence.

"What really makes me angry is he told the truth," Mindy Haney told WMUR-TV on Tuesday. "How can you punish somebody for that?"

Haney said Bennett has helped her lose more than 150 pounds, but acknowledged that she initially didn't want to listen.

"I have been in this lady's shoes. I've been angry and left his practice. I mean, in-my-car-taking-off angry," Haney said.

"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."

[Samwise]

I want to go to her house with a megaphone and yell "FATTY FATTY FAT-FAT!" until she cries.

[Nebu]

Reason # 6321 why I went to the ivory tower that is academia.

[Roac]

They went on and on about this the other day, and it sounds like there's a bit more to it than that brief article had.  Basically he went to great lengths to make her feel like shit, to the point of telling her that her husband would probably die before long and she may want to remarry, and she couldn't because she couldn't find anyone due to being ugly.  So yeah, she's got something to be upset about.  Not sure why the doc should be sanctioned over it, since he's pretty much right.  Is being rude appropriate though?

[Llava]

Dolphin Boy: [Are you going to eat me?]
Monster: [Well, that's kinda what I do.]
Dolphin Boy: [How come?]
Monster: [Gosh... nobody ever asked me that. They just scream at me. And all that screaming really upsets me. So I eat them.]
Dolphin Boy: [No one is ever nice to me, either. It's because I'm... fat.]
Monster: [Hey, now... you're not fat. You're husky.]
Dolphin Boy: [Thanks. You're nice.]
Monster: [Will you be my... friend?]
Dolphin Boy: [Yes! Yes!]

The monster and Dolphin Boy reach out to touch fingertips, ET-style The monster seems to hesitate.Dolphin Boy and the monster touch fingertips, and there's a spark. Dolphin Boy grimaces in pain, his fingertip burnt and blackened.

Dolphin Boy: [Ow! You burned my finger you ugly stupid stinking monster!]
Monster: [Oh, no! I'm sorry. Sorry you're so freaking fat!]
Dolphin Boy: [You said I was husky!]
Monster: [Guess I was blinded by your fat.]
Dolphin Boy: [I thought we were friends.]
Monster: [Fat makes you think crazy things.]

[Hanzii]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4393.0

[Shockeye]

Doctor accused of racial remark to fat patient
N.H. officials investigating complaints against embattled physician

Updated: 9:06 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2005

CONCORD, N.H. - The state is investigating a doctor accused of telling a patient she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men and advising another to shoot herself following brain surgery.

“Let’s face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you?” the state Board of Medicine says Dr. Terry Bennett told the overweight patient in June 2004.

“Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy,” it quoted him as saying, based on the woman’s complaint.

The board said it also is taking a second look at a 2001 allegation — deemed unfounded at the time — that Bennett told a woman recovering from brain surgery to buy a pistol and shoot herself to end her suffering.

Bennett made national news last week when the complaint from the obese woman became public without any mention of the racial comment. But Senior Assistant Attorney General Richard Head, who leads the state Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau, said Tuesday the woman complained about the racial remark, not about being lectured.

In a telephone interview Tuesday from Rochester, Bennett denied any wrongdoing and defended his message to her, saying he has read polls that say black men prefer overweight women.

Bennett added that he is angry the board is reconsidering the 2001 complaint.

“That patient is currently in a nursing home completely demented, tied to a chair drooling on herself and doesn’t recognize anybody,” said Bennett, 67. “She was in pretty nearly that condition at the time she filed that complaint.”

Bennett’s lawyer, Charles Douglas, said his client is being attacked by the board, which, by its own rules, does not discipline doctors for bedside manner.

“If a patient does not like the message, go to another doctor,” Douglas said.

Head said the 2001 complaint is being considered as part of a review of Bennett’s overall adherence to medical ethics. The state Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau investigates complaints against doctors, though the board decides how to act on them.

Head said privacy laws prevent him from disclosing the women’s names.

The board can fine, reprimand or suspend doctors. It also can revoke doctors’ licenses or require them to attend classes or treatment. A hearing is planned Dec. 7.

Earlier this year, Bennett rejected an effort by the board to resolve the latest complaint. The board wanted him to admit he had made a mistake and to attend a class on medical ethics, which he called “touchy-feely school.”

Bennett previously was cited by the board in 1995 when, as part of a settlement to avoid discipline, he admitted lying on his 1992 and 1993 medical license renewal applications about being denied hospital privileges. He was fined $1,000.

[Miasma]

That patient is currently in a nursing home completely demented, tied to a chair drooling on herself

If this is what the guy says on the record to a reporter (while trying to defend himself about being insensitive) I'm certain that all the other allegations are true.  He's not even denying the racist comment.  What an asshole.

[NowhereMan]

It's like Dr. Cox gone bad, "You are what you eat and it looks like you ate a big ol' fat guy didn't ya?"

[tazelbain]

Looks like this guy comes from the Vicente Fox School of Leadership.

[Shockeye]

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

By ANNE RUDERMAN
Monitor staff
December 20. 2005 8:00AM

he 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 yesterday. 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.

[TheWalrus]

See, if he'd just told her to eat more mayo and lard sandwiches and drink a half gallon of egg nog every day, she'd be dead and his ass wouldn't be in a sling. (he's still a jerk.)

[HaemishM]

Wow, what a thundercunt.

[Sky]

Yeah, the Thundercunts was a wicked cartoon.