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.’ ”
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.
Even more shocking than that is the fact that President Bush (aka Chimpy McHitlerBurton BushCO) has not taken a moment from his vacation to SPEAK OUT ABOUT THIS!
Someone alert Armando and KOS!
BumperStickerist
Based on his body/mass index, Bush is fat.
And Bush takes five weeks of vacation at a stretch, that makes him either lazy or French.
Bush SPEAKING OUT on this issue would make him a HYPOCRITE.
tBone
Wow. I know I always get cranky when I have to go back to work after a vacation, but I’ve got nothing on you, John.
But yeah, your end-of-post snark aside, this is a really stupid story. Do smokers get terribly offended if a doctor tells them it’s bad for them? I thought a doctor’s job was to help people stay healthy.
Mike S
Have a drink John. You’re getting a little rediculous.
Richard Bennett
Chimpy clearly has something to hide here, or he’d meet with the fat pig and tell her she’s cute.
Jeff G
It’s A QUAGMIRE OF FAT, John!
Jeff G
It’s JUST LIKE VIETNAM, only with a FAT WOMAN instead of VIET CONG, and a pantry full of HO-HOs instead of tunnel systems containing barrels of dried rice in which are hidden Soviet-made rifle.
THE PRESIDENT MUST INTERCEDE NOW AND PULL THIS WOMAN OUT OF HER KITCHEN!
Doug
That’s President Chimpy McFlopsweat to you pal.
John S.
John, you have officially jumped the shark.
ppGaz
The intent of the original post, as near as I can figure out, is to equate the plight of a fat woman at the doctor’s office with a protest against a costly, no-end-in-sight war that is controversial at best, unpopular and growing more so, and killing a helluva lot of people.
Yeah, I get it. Fat joke, war. Fatty, war. Fatso, war.
Yeah, I’m gettin it now.
Theseus
The silence of the neofascist, wingnuts, Chimpy loving, imperialistic, racist, theocon, neocon, gingoistic Republithugs—errr, I mean of the “right” is deafening. It’s Lord Sidious, errrr, I mean Rove’s fault I tell ya. May the Force be with us all…
John Cole
Officially? They don’t have anything up.
Umm, not surprisingly, no.
The point of this post was to highlight this idiotic story. Then, for fun, I added a catcall for all the people who think the President should respond to EVERYTHING they don’t like.
ppGaz
Sure, got it.
We have a section in the local paper for stories like that. I think some college kid intern edits it.
But thanks to the Internets, I can get all of the goofyana I need, right here!
Consider the point taken.
John S.
Wait until they add Blogs to their roster!
Mark
Kos is too busy with his plan to destroy the DLC to be bothered by fat women insulted by doctors.
Otto Man
Come on, they’re already equated. Michael Moore criticizes the war. Michael Moore is fat. Therefore, all criticism of the war is invalid.
Something like that. Darrell will be along soon to explain it all, and then call us deranged scumbags.
James Emerson
I have no idea what you’re talking about, so here
Otto Man
Personally, I think this woman should do something more dramatic to bring national attention to the horrible, horrible experience of a doctor telling her to lose weight.
Something big. Maybe a hunger strike?
ppGaz
Life is good.
KC
That’s funny, John. I needed to laugh.
goonie bird
If they give you the Special K pinch you give them the hawwiian punch POW
Mithrandir
Apparently you were the only one (besides me) that laughed. All these other deranged scumbags are too full of themselves to laugh once in a while. Apparently they are also siding with the woman who is more concerned with her hurt feelings than with her inevitable pulmonary hypertension, not with the doctor that is trying to save her life.
… sorry, I saw that Darrell wasn’t here yet …
Otto Man
Nice impersonation, Mithrandir. Can you do Nicholson, too?
Nate
I wonder how long it will take before John joins some of the Freeper’s crowd with their “I can’t believe I voted for this idiot!” One year? Two years? Eight years? Ten?
Too bad too many warmongers are like their Dear Leader and have troubled admitting mistakes.
Jim Caputo
I don’t understand why Congress isn’t acting on this. The woman is clearly going to die from her obesity. The very least they could do is pass a bill and fly Bush back from Crawford to sign it at midnight.
Oh wait, this woman needs the feeding tube taken out, not put in.
Nevermind.
Jim Caputo
And the correct name is Chimpy McCokespoon. All others are mere imposters.
carpeicthus
Oh, grow up.
SInequanon
Oh, for goodness sake, John. Was this post really necessary? You are implying that liberals have something to do with a medical review boards actions over this rediculous complaint. Do, give me a break…you must of been in a foul temper to have posted this drivel.
Midshipman Enfield
You are implying that liberals have something to do with a medical review boards actions over this rediculous complaint.
What
Jim Caputo
But no one has called for Bush to respond to “EVERYTHING” we don’t like. We’ve expected Bush to respond to things EVERYONE should dislike (unless you can find some reason to LIKE running over crosses and flags which represent our fallen troops, or you LIKE prominent religious leaders calling for assassinations of foreign heads of state).
Stormy70
BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!
Geek, Esq.
I prefer the weight loss advice given to Jake LaMotta by his brother in Raging Bull:
APF
Clearly the rational next step for this woman is to stage an eat-in—catered by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, and featuring awareness-raising speeches by Camryn Manheim—while stalking the Doctor on a working vacation, until he explains the “noble cause” behind why her feelings had to be hurt. In the meantime she can give interviews detailing how the medicine-industrial complex is a fraud whose only concern is to make people sicker.
luddite
John, you have officially jumped the shark.
Sorry, John. I have to agree. You have been particularly shrill this week. Maybe the cute co-eds will bring you back to your normal self.
Boo
Please. The details of the complaint cannot be released but this doctor has gone public anyway.
Obesity lowers likelihood of receiving preventive health care
DURHAM, N.C. – Obese people are less likely to receive preventive services such as mammograms, Pap smears and flu shots from health care providers, according to an analysis of health care data by Duke University Medical Center researchers.
The Duke study showed that, for a sample of white middle-aged women, as body mass index (BMI) went up, the odds of receiving mammograms and Pap smears went down. BMI is a measurement of body fatness based on weight adjusted for height. In data gathered in 2000, a white woman of normal weight was more than 50 percent more likely to receive a mammogram than a severely obese white woman (BMI greater than 40), the study showed.
The researchers found a similar inverse correlation between obesity and flu shots among elderly white women and men.
/snip
“Despite knowing that obese women have a higher risk of breast and cervical cancer, and the obese elderly have a higher risk of complications from flu, obese people are less likely to receive clinical preventive services,” said Truls Ostbye, M.D., Ph.D., lead study author and a professor in Duke’s department of community and family medicine.
Based on their analyses, Ostbye and his co-authors found that income, education and access to health care were not important reasons for the discrepancies in care. The researchers suggest that significant causes may include social stigma, avoidance of health care by patients and bias by health care providers.
The results of the Duke study were published in the September 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, both part of the National Institutes of Health.
Geoduck
Does this mean that leftists no longer have to issue disclaimers every time Ward Churchill opens his yap?
capelza
I must say..it was soooo nice of the rightwing to bring Mr. Churchill to the attention of the Left, otherwise he would have continued to languish in the obscurity he so richly deserves. Much like the Left lifting Robertson from his backwater and unknown little wingnutopia.
As for this woman, isn’t a doctors JOB to tell their patients when they are getting too fat to be healthy or sexual? Lordy, words fail me.
Cyrus
Based on his body/mass index, Bush is fat.
And Bush takes five weeks of vacation at a stretch, that makes him either lazy or French.
Bush SPEAKING OUT on this issue would make him a HYPOCRITE.
Hilarious! Thank you, Bumper. I hereby nominate you for the Golden Smartass, the annual award for the best blog post.
scs
I heard just some snippets on tv today of what the doctor actually said to the women. Apparently he said something like, men won’t find you attractive if you’re fat. And she said, I’m married, my husband is overweight too and he doesn’t mind. And then he said, well statistically men die before women do so you’re husband will die before you do, and then you’ll be too fat to find another husband.
Now was that necessary? This doctor sounds like a little bit of a sadist getting his jollies degrading people under the cover of giving them “good medical advice”.
Its funny to me how the media is jumping to this doctors defense before they even heard the full story. You always have to hear both sides before you jump to conclusions.