Last week, I followed up on the final Minnesota Supreme Court verdict in the lawsuit where Dr. David McKee, a neurologist, sued his patient's son, Kenneth Laurion, who was so unhappy with Dr. McKee's treatment of his father, that he posted negative reviews all over the internet, citing Dr. McKee's arrogance.
And Dr. McKee is NOT happy with the verdict, or my assessment of it.
In fact, he is so unhappy that he posted comments to the original post from 2011 where I told you about the lawsuit when the first court reached a verdict. Because that post is so old, and therefore few would ever see the comments, I wanted to bring to your attention just what he said.
Read Dr. McKee's comments (scroll to the bottom of the comments).
And here is my reply to Dr. McKee:
Dr. McKee,
This is strictly "he said, he said" - and it cannot be recreated or witnessed. That means we are left with the perceptions of the two people involved and, truthfully, neither one of you gets big points for handling this well.
However, YOU are the professional. As such, part of your responsibility is to communicate clearly and with enough compassion and empathy that your patients and their loved ones don't misunderstand (or mis-translate) what you have said, decided, ordered or done.
Look - I can understand that you were upset at what he said about what he perceived as your arrogance. But as is true in any form of communication - perception is the receiver's reality. Had you not come across as brusque, callous, disrespectful, arrogant, or any other adjective for disconnected one can use, Mr. Laurion would not have pursued a public punishment for you.
And when he did, I dare say, fixing it would have required only an apology from you, whether or not you agreed with his perception. Two words, "I'm sorry," would have made a world of difference.
Would that have been so difficult? Evidently, yes. The fact that you are now calling him names as if you were both in middle school speaks volumes. Even if Mr. Laurion is a bully, that must have been triggered by something. So instead of taking care of it the way a professional should, you instead chose to escalate the problem. Unprofessional and undignified.
Sadly (from your perspective), instead you have become the poster boy for doctors who don't communicate well, providing a lesson for all doctors who arrogantly treat their patients and families like second-class citizens. You may have outstanding neurology skills (I have no idea if you do or don't), but if you can't communicate respectfully, clearly and with empathy, then your skills as a physician are lacking, and your patients and their families are not being well-served.
Trisha Torrey
As I said in the follow up post last week about the verdict from the Minnesota Supreme Court - there is no room for arrogance in medicine. Period.
For Dr. McKee, that has become a very expensive lesson.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Agree? Disagree?
Share your experience or join the conversation!
NEWSLETTER | FORUM | TWITTER
FACEBOOK | CONNECT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Photo © Microsoft Image Gallery
“Dennis Laurion was sitting in a chair on the same side of his father’s bed as the patient. He would have needed only to lean forward a little to reach the ties of the gown.”
While my father was lying down, and when he was seated, I was unaware that the back string was untied. It was my father who mentioned his parting gown. We then insisted on leaving the room to wait in the hall.
“I have been the victim of a cowardly relentless series of attacks by a truly sick human being.”
McKee has learned to exercise his own free-speech rights. In earlier responses to publicity, I’ve been called an oddball sort of fellow, passive-aggressive, liar, bully, coward, and malicious person.
I think somebody should have told McKee about the Streisand Effect.
I feel that I have been the victim of a game of financial attrition that I haven’t wanted to play.
” As an example, in the earliest versions of Laurion’s description, he mentioned, accurately, that I helped his father to a standing position. A later version stated that I pulled his father out of bed; still later that I jerked his father against a closed bedrail and against his will.”
In my postings to the public, I stopped short of details that would have embarrassed my father but shared those details with a state agency. McKee is apparently including my comments to a state agency, while insisting he didn’t sue me for those contacts.
“He fired off 19 letters of complaint within the next few days.”
McKee is apparently including letters that I wrote as a response to his suit.
“He tried for several weeks to get the local media outlets interested; none would have anything to do with him until he met up with Mark Stodghill of the Duluth News Tribune. The two of them met several times over a 2 week period to come up with a great doctor bashing piece of propaganda.”
When McKee sent a threat letter, I asked 3 local media outlets if such a suit would be a “man bites dog” story. I never mentioned McKee’s name and would not have, had there been no suit. In spite of follow-up inquiries by the press, I demurred giving his name until a public record existed. On the day of filing, Mr. Stodghill found the public record without my prompting and ran the story. Mr Stodghill contacted me once by email and once by phone. We did not meet over any time period, and I did not recognize Mr. Stodghill, who was covering my first court appearance.
We have been in this same position. After a surgery, a relentless front desk manager who had no experience started. she was rude, called me a druggie, and why were my doses so high ( I had just left the hospital with 1/2 my chest cut open. We had asked our Dr. if we could not deal with her and he said,”Sorry just hired her”. We said we’d be leaving after almost 3 years of monthly appts we were close. I got my records-all looked fine. Fast foward 10 days-thet new manager had placed a 3 page rant that was not in any of my records anywhere But somehow the new pain dr.we were to see had received this, saying I was a constant pill abuser & no one would treat me so I was fired from last office & did not leave on my own; nothing had a date/explanation. As soon as this interviewing pain dr. started firing mean, crazy questions, I thought he was lying and wanted to see the records, he would’nt let me & I I started to cry & they had me escorted from his office. Tried again & it happened again-this time I called my dr and begged him him to tell me what was going on-he had no idea. There was nothing he could do-he couldn’t remove it. I was crazy, I said I need meds, I need Physical therapy, my surgeoun won’t see me because he said your office said you fired me. He said I’m sorry & hung up. So all these years later I never had therapy. My leg healed improperly there’s nerve damage. I had to withdrawl myself & because I wrote 4 bad reviews-He is still suing my husband and I for 100K . I have had to have 2 more sugeries since & we DON’T have $$ laying around, worse yet, on each of the places where I put a bad review the office manager or maybe the Dr. put my private medical records along with saying I was fired for drug abuse, which is probably why they kept me as a patient for 3 yrs? (sarcasm) Plus what she/dr. did by writing my private health info on public sites each time is a huge HIPPA fine each time.
The doctor said in his deposition that with regard to finding out if Mr. Laurion was alive or dead, “I made a jocular comment… to the effect of I had looked for [Kenneth Laurion] up there in the intensive care unit and was glad to find that, when he wasn’t there, that he had been moved to a regular hospital bed, because you only go one of two ways when you leave the intensive care unit; you either have improved to the point where you’re someplace like this or you leave because you’ve died.”
The court said the differences between the two versions of the statements about death or transfer by both plaintiff and defendant were so minor that there was no falsity in the website posting abut that statement. In other words, the court indicated that the allegation about the statement having been made was true, for purposes of the court’s decision.
Source: http://blogs.duanemorris.com/duanemorrisnewmedialawblog/entry/bedside_manners_was_the_doctor