Doctor in trouble for calling patient obese
 

Updated: 2:10 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2005

ROCHESTER, N.H. - As doctors warn more patients that they should lose weight, the advice has backfired on one doctor with a woman filing a complaint with the state 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. 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.'"
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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.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9063638/

Only in america :1orglaugh :helpme

I bet thats not the whole story

Yeah I read that - ridiculous!!!!!

haha that's awesome, fuck her

just give me her name, i'll call her up for him and call her a Oreo eating fat fuck!

Oh good grief. Heaven forbid that a doctor tell you what's really wrong.

Why don't that surprise me ... fat headed obese people ... they think they are the shit .

Just look at all the fat bitches saying " you know you want it " ... hell no you fucking cu*nt

That is a fucking joke, and a waste of money and time. FUCK That FAT BITCH!

Now tell me how you guys *REALLY* feel...

She was more offended by him telling her that statistically it will be much harder for her to find new love as an obese woman as her husband that she was leaving was also obese. Something along those lines anyway but pretty dumb.

Who would have thought being obese was unhealthy and more unattractive than someone who was more physically fit?

She should've looked at the mirror before filing that complain. Reality really hurts.

I'm 5'11 and 200lbs and my doctor told me I had to loose some weight before it would kill me.

The women is upset because her doctor told her she was fat. Get over it already.

What so he can learn how to call fat people by a less offending name? I wish more doctors had the guts to tell people that their obesity is more than just an eye sore - it can kill you.

I soooo agree.

:1orglaugh

The guy said something ignorant. Doctors are human; an apology should have sufficed. If I sued everyone who offended me I'd probably be rich, but I'd be an antisocial moron.


In fact he should countersue and claim he's offended by her lawsuit. :1orglaugh

Fat Bitch.......

She paid for his opinion and didn't like it. She could have easily gotten a second opinion but who wants to hear the truth more than once?

what did you expect... this is the USA

if that was all there was to it, then that's fine. but if she went in with a problem and instead of him doing tests or whatever, he just said you're fat and lose weight, then that's a whole different story.

the only reason they are making such a big deal about it is because he was speaking to 1/2 the population of New Hampshire

now doctors will tell you that you are "PERFECT" just to cover their asses from getting sued.. amazing what layers do to the world

holy shit, a doctor telling a fat person they are fat? Oh the humanity of it all!

Although it does seem harsh at first it all depends on the circumstances..

I dont go to an auto mechanic to be told i drive like shit.. and thats why my gears are stripped.

If i ask why my gears are stripped he is welcome to tell me thats its from abuse of the gears due to improper use , but if he reffered to me as " the guy whu doesn't know how to shift properly" i would be pissed off also..

If you paid a plumber to clean your pipes and he told you , that your shit stinks , you would be pissed off.

Doctors are like pest control. If they did their job , you wouldn't be back.. A smart doctor would have told her she was skinny and needed to bulk up.

Your analogies are true, but aren't relevant to this case. A doctor telling a patient she is obese is nothing like a mechanic saying you drive like crap. A better example (that fits your mechanic story) would be a doctor telling a patient she has to stop eating Doritos and get off her fat ass - he has no idea she sits around all day and eats crap food. Similar to mr.mechanic making a note of your driving skills (or at least commenting on them - it could be your kid doing all the damage!)

Her doctor, we can assume, is fully qualified to determine that she is "obese".

Hell, my doctor is far more blunt - he has no qualms about telling you what you need to hear, whether you like it or not. That's why I go to him and not some guy who will tell me everything is rosy just to cover his ass.

the problem with fat people is that their medical issues caused by obesity cause ALL medical insurance premiums to increase.

people don't realize this yet. nearly half of americans are overweight, and about one third are obese.

and these lazy fat fucks sit around watching TV and munching potato chips, with their high blood pressure, and diabetes, and heart trouble and cause all medical costs to zoom, and everyone pays.

sorry for the truth. LOTS of disease can be prevented just by eating right and exercise.

just 50 years ago things were a lot different. if you have private medical insurance (blue cross, etc) you know what i'm talking about---premiums in usa are going up like crazy and alot of it is caused by people just not taking care of themselves.

truth hurts doesn't it.

jesus christ... i had a psychiatrist laugh and tell me 'you're crazy'... and i was like 'haha doc, you can't say that to me!' he shrugged and said 'what else is there to say? im former military like you, and i put it blunt'.... ahahah i took his comments as rights to permanent bragging rights to all........

i blew that shrink's mind!

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh
I think you are normal dude.

:1orglaugh

Gee, guess she was smart enough to listen to her doctor.. how much of a baby do you have to be to get offended at a DOCTOR telling you that/

my thoughts exactly....it's not like some kid on the street call her a fattie!...The doctor probably did it to help her and she got offended...If a doctor can't give his diagnostic because he's afraid of getting sued, well things are really worse that I thought they were...

of course if he said something like "Hey fatass, welcome to my office. Please sit here and try not to break the furniture" that's a different story :winkwink:

Talk about a loser i'm a little overweight and if somebody were to call me fat i'd lift up my shirt look down at my belly and say thank you I hadn't noticed that lol

FYI - In the USA, 2/3rds of adutlts are overweight. 1/3 are obese. Scarily, the fastest growing segment of the obese is children, and overweight during childhood statistically means likely to be overweight as an adult. Here's a graph, admittedly a bit old... so the situation has gotten worse since:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pub...e/obsefig1.GIF

All that information can be found at the CDC.

For the record: These numbers are based on body-mass index (BMI) and using BMI as a measure of health is a very ill fit. It only takes 2 attributes into account (mass + height) and no judgements on bone structure, activity level, musculature or anything else... a guy who's 6'2" + 240lbs who sits on a couch and has a hangbelly is obese by this measure, but so is the 6'2" + 240lbs guy who has 6% body fat and is a total gym nut.

At best, BMI could be used with reasonable accuracy as a measure of change (how many people were at a particular BMI during period X vs. period Y). Since there obviously hasn't been a huge influx of body builders wandering the streets of late, it's reasonable to assume that a majority of bmi delta is due to eating habits.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh