What's upsetting you today?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Right now I am just depressed. Everyone tells me to be angry but I just want to climb into bed and disappear.

Is that the way of the Canucks? Fuckin' Sergeant Preston wouldn't go to bed, Wayne Gretzky wouldn't go to bed. But if you insist, want some company?

Get pissed and go on a tear. Lawyer up, testify before Congress, write up the whole story for the internet to be outraged over. Make an example of the scum, demand the death penalty. Well maybe not that, but forehead branding, and they'll never work in this town again.

If you want to be in charge, and demand people do their jobs properly... and I'll bet you do, you've got to have thick skin, because they'll see you as the common enemy. Fine, but you also have to have the courage to take these clowns to the woodshed when they cross the line. You go girl!

[it]

I knew I remembered something about this...
http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=30905

Orthodoc, I think you might have had the right instinct back then - to leave. Is that still viable or is the tumor business creating medical bills that make it less then wise?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

Right now I am just depressed. Everyone tells me to be angry but I just want to climb into bed and disappear.

Let the lawyers take care of angry. you take care of you.

[orthodoc]

Thanks all. I think I need to refill my energy tank, there's lots of anger, just out of energy right this minute. Luckily the personal lawsuits don't have to be filed now - there's no deadline, I'm told. I took a short leave to get calm after finding out how bad the violations were - I was expecting one snooping session by the nurse manager, not what was found - I couldn't bear to look at her the rest of the day. I don't know if she'll still be there when I return, or if they'll have sacked her in the two weeks I'm off. I know what I'd do in their shoes, but who knows. They haven't done the sensible thing so far.

I am definitely going independent, one way or another. I had just proposed going independent the week before this happened, and the CEO was open to it. No formal negotiations had started, though. I should probably get things going pronto - the ONLY decent office space in town is in the hospital's new building. There is literally nothing else here. I would have to rent old industrial space and completely renovate at my own expense otherwise - possible but very expensive - and wouldn't have any access to radiology services without the hospital's blessing, and I do need radiology. Again, I will check into alternatives because in some ways being utterly separate would be nice. But this is a one-trick-pony town. I could leave but there's a huge need here for Occ Med with no competition, really. I'd like to stay. Also don't want the misery of selling this place and moving. The real estate market here is dead, we'd take a bath.

[footfootfoot]

I bet a short meeting with a lawyer will do wonders for your energy tank, like Griff said, let them do all the angry.

I don't know what type of practice you want to open, but my GP (PCP will always be angel dust in my mind) has her office on the first floor of a tiny house. There's a waiting room, a bathroom, a small room with scale, BP machine, washer/dryer, and the examining room. It looks just like a house. The only doctor office-y stuff is an eye chart and an examining table with paper, and I think there is a glass jar with cotton balls, but I may just be adding that myself to fill out the picture.

It's a micro-practice.
http://www.impcenter.org/
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2007/0900/p27.html
http://idealmedicalpractices.org/static/JFPM2007-8.pdf

[xoxoxoBruce]

and wouldn't have any access to radiology services without the hospital's blessing, and I do need radiology.

Buy a hunk of plutonium from the Russian black market and negative plates. You're good to go.
Oh, and some cheap expendable help.

[BigV]

orthodoc, you have a ton of advice here, take your pick, I won't pile on.

however, I'm really happy to hear from you again, despite these fucked up circumstances. I feel bad for you and the ... words fail me... seriously fucked up work situation. I've had my own fill of that shit and it's poison, I'm so sorry.

I know you have the things you need to succeed--mettle, resilience, intelligence, creativity, and at the risk of sounding self serving, friends. Don't overlook the fact that you have friends.

Please, please keep in touch.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, she has all those qualities, but a serious handicap to being a manager. She's too attractive to be feared. When dressing down a subordinate, they don't hear a word, they're occupied with, man, she's hot, even the ladies.

[BigV]

So, orthodoc, I remembered a story from a couple months ago about the mistreatment of a patient by the medical staff. In this case, the anesthesiologist mocks the patient, and the others in the room join in with junior high school "humor", it's all very juvenile, and utterly unprofessional. Turns out the patient had his phone set to record and when he played it back after the procedure, all the audio had been captured. In court, he got $500,000.

I wonder if there's any applicable precedent in this case for you to take advantage of.

[orthodoc]

Maybe I can get the name of his lawyer, haha.

But with my luck, there won't be comparable statutes in PA. There will be ridiculously high bars to proving emotional distress or invasion of privacy, or something.

Sorry, I'm irritable after talking to a glassbowl lawyer yesterday who was very dismissive. I'm talking to another one tomorrow, however. At least there's no deadline for personal injury lawsuits. I do have to get a few things ironed out in the very short term, before going back to work; I'm focusing on that right now. Then I'll work on lining up someone for the personal stuff. It seems that I have to have a diagnosis (and treatment) from a licensed therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist in PA to even have an emotional distress case considered. Invasion of privacy can fall under one of four areas, and this does seem to fit at least one. However, one thing at a time. I have to go back to work soon, and I don't want to be sitting 4 feet from the worst offender (or so it seems); have to get to work on that.

[plthijinx]

I've got nothing that hasn't already been said. Chin up, rest up, and let the lawyers chew up what needs chewing up. Concentrate on you.

[Gravdigr]

Hiya Ortho!!

Sorries 'bout the shitstorm.

[it]

So we seem to all be focusing on the shitty coworkers making fun (?!) at tumor pics, and not on the fact there is a tumor to have pics of...

Orth, are you... Dying?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Only of embarrassment at the moment, she's been fighting this for awhile, and I think winning so far.

[it]

Good to hear