Phoney Sick Notes From WI MDs

Madeline

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Apr 20, 2010
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Cleveland. Feel mah pain.
The University of Wisconsin medical school says it's investigating reports that doctors from the school handed out medical excuse notes to protesters at the state Capitol this weekend.

Doctors from numerous hospitals set up a station near the Capitol on Saturday to provide notes to explain public employees' absences from work. One of those doctors was Lou Sanner, who practices family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Sanner said he had given out hundreds of notes to protesters and many he spoke with seemed to be suffering from stress.

UW Health said Sunday that any doctors who distributed notes did so on their own behalf. The school didn't specifically mention Sanner but said it was looking into cases involving any of the school's doctors.

Excuse notes from docs at protests draw scrutiny

So, lemme get this straight. Protesters want to be paid for their days away from work, so they call in sick. To get those days paid, they need a doctor's note. To show solidarity with the protesters, some doctors are issuing these notes at the site of the protest by the thousands.

Anyone besides me see a possible ethical issue or two here?

Only in America are people so fat and lazy, they want to be paid to protest. What a clusterfuck this is becoming.
 
The doctors will be disbarred. WI State Bar is already looking into it.
 
Teachers do not get random vacation time nor are they permitted unpaid leave. They had to use sick time. I am not excusing it, but that's the only way they could have gone to the protest.
 
The doctors will be disbarred. WI State Bar is already looking into it.

Seems to me, calling in sick when you are not to be free to protest may be a form of embezzlement, Mini.

I had no idea these people were trying to get PAID for protesting. I am a tad pissed off.



To me, it's a perfect anecdote regarding the entire Public Employee Union con game.
 
Teachers do not get random vacation time nor are they permitted unpaid leave. They had to use sick time. I am not excusing it, but that's the only way they could have gone to the protest.


The doctors committed fraud by handing out notes to people who clearly were not sick.
 
Teachers do not get random vacation time nor are they permitted unpaid leave. They had to use sick time. I am not excusing it, but that's the only way they could have gone to the protest.

Its still Fraud. The proper way would to basically go to the protest, and deal with the consequences afterwards. No one ever said your right to protest had to be compensated.

They should be liable for any sanctions the school boards see fit to impose.
 
That is such a load of crap.

If they are THAT STRESSED, then they belong at home, not working themselves into a lather at a public protest and putting others at risk.
 
Teachers do not get random vacation time nor are they permitted unpaid leave. They had to use sick time. I am not excusing it, but that's the only way they could have gone to the protest.


The doctors committed fraud by handing out notes to people who clearly were not sick.
:cuckoo:

Stress is a valid medical diagnosis.

Actually, it's not:

Wisconsin's Real Doctors and Their Fake Sick Notes for Protesters - Ford Vox - National - The Atlantic

Wisconsin's Real Doctors and Their Fake Sick Notes for Protesters
By Ford Vox (Ford Vox is a brain injury physician and journalist based in Boston. His writing on health care policy and medical science has appeared in diverse media outlets including Reuters, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Salon and Slate.)

...But last week some of these weary warriors carried their patient advocacy too far. In videos breathlessly presented throughout the conservative mediasphere this weekend [scroll down to see], doctor after doctor is videotaped writing patently fraudulent sick notes so that the protesting teachers (whose contracts specify that missing work without an excuse can result in dismissal) can keep marching on against the state's union-busting Republican government.

After viewing the videos at my request last night, Dr. Arthur Derse called me up exclaiming, "Holy mackerel! It's much worse than it looked in the paper. I'm stunned, absolutely stunned." Dr. Derse is the Director of Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities a the Medical College of Wisconsin. "When all's said and done, it's really the profession of medicine that has the black eye in this case," he says.

There is no question these doctors are masking political opinion in the white coat of the medical profession, Dr. Derse believes. "The videos are pretty damning."

It's sad, but what puzzles me most is how in the world three of the four physicians I can identify from these videos and other media reports are faculty members of UW's Family Medicine department, and one is a senior resident in that same department. It's a good training program, committed to providing sorely-needed primary care doctors to the state of Wisconsin. It teaches professionalism, and its faculty are supposed to model integrity. What were they thinking?

They've managed to belittle a public trust between physicians, employers and patients. A doctor's sick note is a serious document. It represents an employer's desire to verify through a respected, independent, medically qualified third party the fact of an illness and the true need for convalescence. In the videos now circulating online, we witness multiple members of a noted family medicine department trash one of the well-recognized rights and privileges of their profession, with little forethought as to the consequences.

UW's doctors have demeaned not only the doctor-patient relationship, but in so doing, risked the stature doctors hold in our discourse on public policy. When commenting on social issues, physicians trade on the honor of our profession, benefiting from the public's assumption that the wisdom won of caring for so many at their most vulnerable imbues us with some privileged understanding of collective need.

In one of the videos and a newspaper account, Associate Professor Lou Sanner says he's giving out sick notes for "stress" (not a medical diagnosis). He claims he's forming doctor-patient relationships in his slapdash street encounters with apparently healthy protesters. Besides his work in bioethics, Dr. Derse is an emergency physician, regularly tasked with determining fitness for work. He's offended by Dr. Sanner's thin claims. "I couldn't imagine just walking up to people with a stack of work excuses, 'What's your name? Here you go.' ... It reflects poorly on the practice of medicine, and it reflects poorly on physicians who actually do take the time and effort try to determine whether someone is ill and is legitimately away from work," he adds.

These doctors sacrificed a slice of the medical profession's credibility for a political cause. Was it worth it? The fallout is mounting...
 
Teachers do not get random vacation time nor are they permitted unpaid leave. They had to use sick time. I am not excusing it, but that's the only way they could have gone to the protest.
Then they should protest on Saturdays or not expect to be paid. They should also be required to make up all days missed. Those with phony notes should be fired and prosecuted.
 
I wouldn't write them...unless they came to my office for a medical reason. And then I would write that they had been seen in my office.
 
Fresh air and exercise is an excellent anecdote to stress.

And the rest of us take a walk during our lunch hour, or work out before or after work.

We don't have to "Sick Out" and protest for a week because we need exercise.
 
The doctors committed fraud by handing out notes to people who clearly were not sick.
:cuckoo:

Stress is a valid medical diagnosis.

Actually, it's not:

Wisconsin's Real Doctors and Their Fake Sick Notes for Protesters - Ford Vox - National - The Atlantic

Wisconsin's Real Doctors and Their Fake Sick Notes for Protesters
By Ford Vox (Ford Vox is a brain injury physician and journalist based in Boston. His writing on health care policy and medical science has appeared in diverse media outlets including Reuters, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Salon and Slate.)

...But last week some of these weary warriors carried their patient advocacy too far. In videos breathlessly presented throughout the conservative mediasphere this weekend [scroll down to see], doctor after doctor is videotaped writing patently fraudulent sick notes so that the protesting teachers (whose contracts specify that missing work without an excuse can result in dismissal) can keep marching on against the state's union-busting Republican government.

After viewing the videos at my request last night, Dr. Arthur Derse called me up exclaiming, "Holy mackerel! It's much worse than it looked in the paper. I'm stunned, absolutely stunned." Dr. Derse is the Director of Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities a the Medical College of Wisconsin. "When all's said and done, it's really the profession of medicine that has the black eye in this case," he says.

There is no question these doctors are masking political opinion in the white coat of the medical profession, Dr. Derse believes. "The videos are pretty damning."

It's sad, but what puzzles me most is how in the world three of the four physicians I can identify from these videos and other media reports are faculty members of UW's Family Medicine department, and one is a senior resident in that same department. It's a good training program, committed to providing sorely-needed primary care doctors to the state of Wisconsin. It teaches professionalism, and its faculty are supposed to model integrity. What were they thinking?

They've managed to belittle a public trust between physicians, employers and patients. A doctor's sick note is a serious document. It represents an employer's desire to verify through a respected, independent, medically qualified third party the fact of an illness and the true need for convalescence. In the videos now circulating online, we witness multiple members of a noted family medicine department trash one of the well-recognized rights and privileges of their profession, with little forethought as to the consequences.

UW's doctors have demeaned not only the doctor-patient relationship, but in so doing, risked the stature doctors hold in our discourse on public policy. When commenting on social issues, physicians trade on the honor of our profession, benefiting from the public's assumption that the wisdom won of caring for so many at their most vulnerable imbues us with some privileged understanding of collective need.

In one of the videos and a newspaper account, Associate Professor Lou Sanner says he's giving out sick notes for "stress" (not a medical diagnosis). He claims he's forming doctor-patient relationships in his slapdash street encounters with apparently healthy protesters. Besides his work in bioethics, Dr. Derse is an emergency physician, regularly tasked with determining fitness for work. He's offended by Dr. Sanner's thin claims. "I couldn't imagine just walking up to people with a stack of work excuses, 'What's your name? Here you go.' ... It reflects poorly on the practice of medicine, and it reflects poorly on physicians who actually do take the time and effort try to determine whether someone is ill and is legitimately away from work," he adds.

These doctors sacrificed a slice of the medical profession's credibility for a political cause. Was it worth it? The fallout is mounting...
:rolleyes:

Of course a rightwing blogger would say that.
According to the American Medical Association, stress is a factor in more than 75% of sickness today. And according to the World Health Organization, stress is America’s #1 Health Problem.

Stress Facts & Stats, Stress Statistics, Stress is Killing People, Stress Kills : Reduce Stress – Conquer Anxiety – MESICS Training – A Sound Mind In A Healthy Body
 
The University of Wisconsin medical school says it's investigating reports that doctors from the school handed out medical excuse notes to protesters at the state Capitol this weekend.

Doctors from numerous hospitals set up a station near the Capitol on Saturday to provide notes to explain public employees' absences from work. One of those doctors was Lou Sanner, who practices family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Sanner said he had given out hundreds of notes to protesters and many he spoke with seemed to be suffering from stress.

UW Health said Sunday that any doctors who distributed notes did so on their own behalf. The school didn't specifically mention Sanner but said it was looking into cases involving any of the school's doctors.

Excuse notes from docs at protests draw scrutiny

So, lemme get this straight. Protesters want to be paid for their days away from work, so they call in sick. To get those days paid, they need a doctor's note. To show solidarity with the protesters, some doctors are issuing these notes at the site of the protest by the thousands.

Anyone besides me see a possible ethical issue or two here?

Only in America are people so fat and lazy, they want to be paid to protest. What a clusterfuck this is becoming.

Patients present (express) the right symptoms, doctors write the note.
They aren't comp docs, they are gen practitioners...and members of their community...
if the system is trying to fuck the teachers, is it really SO wrong for the teachers to try to fuck the system?
 
xotoxi gave the ethical response, which Ravi wouldn't recognize if it slapped her on the ass and called her Judy.
 

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