Go in for a circumcision......

[Sum Dum Gai]

You'll have to forgive me for being a little stressed. I just went in for an operation because my penis was painfully inflamed and I couldn't urinate. The doctor found cancer, acted quickly to excise it (taking a professional risk on my good faith), possibly saving my life in the process. Now, rather than thanking him for taking a risk to save my life, I'm trying to decide whether to sue him for infringing on my sacred right to make stupid decisions or instead just throw him down a flight of stairs.

When you put it that way...

I changed my mind. You're right. I'm totally in favor of certain highly trained professionals being able to decide to override our rights. I mean, not all of them, that's crazy, but just less important ones. Like a doctor with the consent thing. They spend so long in school and residency, they know what's in our best interest we should let them at it. No questions asked. And like cops, they're highly trained experts. If they know for sure that somebody is guilty what's the harm in letting them ignore that whole probable cause thing? I mean as long as they're right and the "illegal" searches actually find something, what's the harm? Lawyers too. They spend a lot of time in school. Who cares if they skirt the rules a bit, maybe falsify some evidence at trial. Not all the time mind you, just when they know the person is like extra guilty. And only on the prosecution side. They're doing us a service and putting bad people in jail after all. We should not only let cops, lawyers, doctors, etc. violate our rights, we should freaking thank them for it when they do.

Again, not all our rights. Just our stupid ones. We'll let the professionals decide which ones those are, since we aren't really capable of making our own decisions anyway.

[Sammy]

No matter how you look at it the situation is very sad. I know that in some cases more harm can be done by closing the incision and waiting to discuss the issue with the patient. I see this for both the patient and doctor as a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

[Sammy]

I agree with you, Rick. There most certainly is way more to this than what's out in the open. Still sad for both parties.

I knew a man who had cancer and had to have pretty much everything in the genital area removed including his penis. Did it make him less of a man..... no! There is more to a man than his penis.

[TD2K]

"Hey Doc, just take a little off the top please"

[Virgil Showlion]

Again, not all our rights. Just our stupid ones. We'll let the professionals decide which ones those are, since we aren't really capable of making our own decisions anyway.

If the doctor has done you harm, sue sue sue away.

If you have any concrete evidence that i) the doctor did not act in what he professionally believed to be your best interest, ii) another doctor could have eliminated your cancer without excising it, or iii) there was no significant financial or medical penalty for delaying the operation, then sue sue sue away.

But if your only grievance is that this doctor took a decision out of your hands and put it into his, if you decide to sue him for that reason, I say: screw what the law says, you are doing this man a moral wrong.

IMO, the right to sue comes with the responsibility to exercise that right when there is sufficient evidence to prove things couldn't have turned out worse if the decision had been yours to make.

[Sammy]

Rick: I just ran an unofficial poll and everyone I talked to said it should have been whacked off

Yikes, who the heck did you talk to?? Instead of using the word 'wacked' how about surgically removed.

[steff]

That's the part I don't think you guys are getting. It doesn't matter whether or not the doc was right about the cancer and the treatment. Deciding how to treat it without the patients consent is against the freaking law. Those laws exist for a reason. People have a fundamental right to decide for themselves issues about their own body. A doctor taking that right away from a patient is reprehensible, and clearly shows a total disregard for that person.

I had a bad reaction to a test and was in the ER last week, I'm in a total drug fog at one point and I can hear my hubby & my mom arguing with the dr over another test. My brain kept saying "wake up dingbat, if YOU say something, YOU are the one the dr is going to listen to"....I came around long enough to ask if it was the same test? same dye/drug/whatever I reacted to? no? then do the test.... and the dr was GONE before my mom or my hubby could blink. And I went back to my drug fog until they got me for the CT scan. I knew the dr HAD to do what I said as long as I could say it.

[Sammy]

Gee Steff, are you ok now?

[steff]

yep Sammy..... 6 weeks of being sick, thinking it's my gall bladder and having slow ass tests....one very scary bad reaction to a test....6 hours in the ER and I know that I have an infection 'around' my appendix....got a pharmacy of pill bottles and sent home.... slowly getting better, slowly working out of a vicodin haze, and no longer starving!

[Sum Dum Gai]

If you have any concrete evidence that i) the doctor did not act in what he professionally believed to be your best interest, ii) another doctor could have eliminated your cancer without excising it, or iii) there was no significant financial or medical penalty for delaying the operation, then sue sue sue away.

The surgeon took away your ability to get a second opinion from a specialist who might have been able to do just that because he acted on his own. That by itself is damaging. Or at least potentially damaging.

Also the significant medical penalty for delaying thing; cancer is so horrible because it's a slow, painful, grotesque way to die right? How can something that slowly kills you over a long period of time, also be an immediate threat to your life? If it killed you quickly and suddenly it wouldn't be so horrible. The two are kind of mutually exclusive don't you think? The doctor would be all, "Your honor the man had cancer which was an immediate threat that had to be dealt with, if I left it untreated he would have died a slow horrible death over the following two years." I mean, how much sense does that make. So this case is already sounding like it meets two of your sue, sue, sue requirements. Two out of three ain't bad right?

[Sum Dum Gai]

Maybe, or it was fairly recent. The doc would have no way of knowing that so should probably err on the side of not jumping to conclusions. Was the guy even a cancer specialist, or just a general surgeon?

[Virgil Showlion]

The surgeon took away your ability to get a second opinion from a specialist who might have been able to do just that because he acted on his own. That by itself is damaging. Or at least potentially damaging.

Potentially damaging. So it requires some investigation. The surgeon would have saved a tissue sample. The size and mass of the tumor are known. You'd know how advanced it was. Present this evidence to a few oncologists after the fact, or wade into the medical journals. See what the prognoses are.

If 30% of the prognoses are "wait a while and then reevaluate", then maybe you have a bone to pick with Dr. McCleavey. If the prognosis is 99% "excise the tumor ASAP" (and I'm guessing this is exactly what the prognosis is), then Dr. McCleavey passes condition ii.

Also the significant medical penalty for delaying thing; cancer is so horrible because it's a slow, painful, grotesque way to die right? How can something that slowly kills you over a long period of time, also be an immediate threat to your life?

As Times mentions, it's a ticking time bomb until it gets into your blood or works its way into some part of the body where you can't cut it out.

Besides, if McCleavey doesn't cut it out now and he's certain that you need it done, he's charging you for a second operation, adding to your risk of sepsis, preventing you from getting another operation for at least a few days, and either catheterizing you and pumping you full of pain meds or leaving you in pain and unable to urinate.

[Sum Dum Gai]

As Times mentions, it's a ticking time bomb until it gets into your blood or works its way into some part of the body where you can't cut it out.

How advanced could it have been if the guy was in the doctor's complaining about the swelling and other symptoms and they didn't even find it? Even if we assume the cancer was really advanced and mere days away from moving into the guy's entire body, so the surgeon had little choice, do you really want a doc so inept that he didn't find it until he cut the guy open for something else and got lucky to stay in business? I'm no cancer expert, but I'm pretty sure cancer like affects your body right? It can be found through simple blood work and all that? How is it this guy had such advanced cancer that it was a time bomb about to go off and yet the doctor had no freaking idea, and what was the diagnosis he was so sure about five minutes previously that required the circumcision?

The whole story just doesn't make any sense.

[Sammy]

I can't read this thread anymore because it's making me cringe.

[Sum Dum Gai]

<not serious>

Here's how I keep imagining this thing going down.

Trucker guy has pain and swelling in his unit so he heads to his doctor who's affiliated with Jewish Hospital. He explains the symptoms to his doc, then drops his trousers to show him what's up. The doc is like, "Well I see you still have a foreskin. Let's take care of that real quick while you're here, and it might even alleviate your other symptoms." They schedule the surgery the doc starts cutting when suddenly he sees it, some tumor or whatever. "Holy crap!" he exclaims, "this guy is like really sick and stuff. I should probably cut that out too." The patient wakes up and starts asking the doctor about treating his other symptoms now that the foreskin issue is out of the way, then he feels it. Something isn't quite right. Sure he expected some pain in his crotch from the circumcision but this feels different. He looks down in horror and realizes his penis is like an inch shorter than normal. "What the frak happened," he shouts. "Oh that, yeah it turns out you had cancer so I had to do a little pruning. Don't worry about thanking me, just rest up." The doctor wanders off totally oblivious to the fact that if the guy could get up or walk with his mutilated crotch he would be in serious physical danger.

The next logical step is the call to the attorney and the lawsuit. And the inevitable internet argument about the lawsuit once it hit the news, of course.

</not serious>

[Virgil Showlion]

That would be one more question for an oncologist: in your professional opinion, is Dr. McCleavey a boob for only discovering the cancer on the operating table?

Maybe he is, in which case the suit is really for misdiagnosing your cancer rather than assuming your consent. But even this case warrants an examination of whether the misdiagnosis caused you any real harm. Normally misdiagnoses are harmful because they prevent patients from getting proper treatment.

"Oh that, yeah it turns out you had cancer so I had to do a little pruning. Don't worry about thanking me, just rest up."

How very casual of him.

Maybe this is the case. The world is a crazy place sometimes.

Personally, I live in a world where doctors who casually "prune" their patients' manhoods are a distinct minority.

[Opti]

Aug 23, 2011 8:45:02 GMT -5 Bluerobin said:

tough, maybe he would opt to do nothing - he should be given the choice.

I agree, your body your choice as to how to live or die with it.

[imawino]

Aug 23, 2011 8:03:00 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

I speak from personal experience.

Well, of course you do dear. Why, I can’t recall reading a post from you that wasn’t all about how the OP related to you and your “personal experience” (even if said experience was in fact your cousin’s niece’s hairdresser’s doctor’s UPS delivery guy). Regardless, we get it. Seriously, WE GET IT. You know everything there is to know about cancer, despite neither being an oncologist nor having cancer. I’m not sure if anyone has ever made you aware of a simple fact: sometimes shit is about OTHER PEOPLE. And these mysterious other people, who you seem to have failed to contemplate in your life, have the right to choose what sort of treatment they want done to their body, when they want it, and who they want to receive it from.

When I was a kid, we had this neighbor that my parents dubbed “I’ve done that a miiiiiiillllliiiiooooonnnn times” because of his propensity to respond to any experience one might share with him with that remark. In honor of my parents, I hereby rename you “I’ve done that a miiiiiiillllliiiiooooonnnn times”. You’re welcome.

[imawino]

Aug 24, 2011 12:45:50 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

I think that some of you have been fortunate enough never to have suffered real pain in your life. Once you do, an amputation doesn't look like the worst outcome.

That is one of the more ridiculous, offensive and self-absorbed comments I've ever read on this board. You have absolutely no idea what sort of pain has been dished out to anyone here, and should stop assuming that you do. You are not the most tragic put-upon soul in the world. In fact, if you still think cancer is the worst fate that can befall you, you are one delightfully sheltered person. If you got out more, you'd know there's a myriad of worse horrors you could meet.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Ima: Is there a particular reason why you're lashing out at toughtimes? Your two (somewhat hostile) posts have little if anything do do with the discussion.

ETA: And toughtimes - don't dish it back.

SL - Mod EE

[imawino]

My posts were not intended to be at all hostile. Mocking, absolutely. Not any more so than the previous several pages of posts though. It's just bizarre that everything is about her. And I do take issue and offense at the notion that no one here understands suffering and loss. Seriously? Anyone who believes they are the only one who understands pain and loss is suffering delusions. Though I'd like very much to live in that make-believe world where people don't routinely suffer pain and loss. Where do I sign up?

[Peace Of Mind]

Aug 24, 2011 8:11:17 GMT -5 @pig said:

Pig - You know I'm just teasing you!!

You've damaged my psyche but there is a way you can make it up to me...........

Well, my headache IS gone.

[pig]

This thread is whacked.

I accept your offer PoM.

[Cookies Galore]

Aug 24, 2011 21:39:47 GMT -5 @toughtimes said:

I have never even remotely suggested that I am the only one who has ever suffered in my life. I have friends who have been left near paralyzed by abusive husbands, a father who lived through the Blitz in London, a mom who died of breast cancer and several neighbors who have suffered other forms of cancer. "Carrying your cross" as it were is one of the main tenants of some forms of Christianity.

Nonetheless, the person who pointed out your hostility was not me. Understand that I could not care less how mocking your tone is since I don't give a fig about you. I am not a liar or an exaggerator either and am not emotionally invested in convincing anyone of anything.

Perhaps you are unaware of your tone. It speaks more to you than to me.

Did you ever stop to think why so many people pick on you on these boards? It's you.

[pig]

www.courier-journal.com/article/20110824/NEWS01/308230114/

The jury found that he did indeed consent to the operation and sided with the doctor.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

The jury found that he did indeed consent to the operation and sided with the doctor


If it can be proven I consented that's one thing and I would agree the jury made the right decision.

That being said even if his suit was unfounded I can't really imagine how I would react if I woke up to find part of my body gone and that's not what I thought would happen when I went in. I can't say I'd instantly be a rational person thanking the doctor for saving my life.

I can't imagine what I'd feel like if I woke up with a breast missing, called for not. I REALLY can't imagine what I'd feel like if I was a dude and I lifted the sheet to find the tip of my penis gone.

He may have been unfounded but I wouldn't expect someone in that situation to automatically be rational and thankful.

[pig]

Yes, of course DQ a consent nullifies almost all of the discussion which was based on what if he did not give consent.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

toughtimes: There is also the PM option. Please keep personal arguments off the open boards. You can contact any moderator if you have a grievance of any kind. This goes for everyone here.

SL - Mod EE

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

of course DQ a consent nullifies almost all of the discussion which was based on what if he did not give consent.

I don't think so.

I think a lot of us were trying to drive home to certain posters that doctors can't just do whatever is in your best interests. You have to consent to it first, if you don't the doctor is breaking the law.

In this case the doctor apparently did not break the law, the patient gave permission thru written consent.

[pig]

You can contact any moderator if you have a grievance of any kind.

What if I don't have a grievance but just looking for a date?

DQ are you feeling allright? That's what I just said.