As if doctors do not have enough to worry about, they may need to be politically correct when offering up their medical advice.
According to a recent Findlaw story, an overweight woman became upset (and filed a formal complaint with the New Hampshire board of medicine) when her doctor told her that she was obese and needed to lose weight. According to the doctor:
“I told a fat woman she was obese, Bennett says. I tried to get her attention. 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.'”
The worst part of the story is that the doctor actually may face some form of discipline.
Nothing in the story describes the doctor stating anything inappropriate or even remotely insensitive that would cross the line. Doctors sometimes need to jolt a patient into action. Even assuming the doctor was somewhat insensitive, our health care system still would be much better off with insensitive doctors that get people to make positive and healthy life choices, as opposed to a politically correct doctor that contributes to a patient’s complacency.
I would not be surprised if we soon see a patient suing for emotional distress because a doctor was not nice (or did not tell him what he wanted to hear). Why should truth get in the way of our feelings? For doctors, instead of shooting the messenger, it will be suing the messenger.
