Legal Advice

I knew after the first few sentences of our conversation that I would need to schedule her follow-up appointments for longer time slots than the usual 15 minutes. I knew that she would put me behind schedule in this first appointment. She was going to disrupt the efficiency of my office on this day and probably for a long time to come. Her problem wasn't simple.

She had a primary kidney disease that led to the nephrotic syndrome, a condition that results from the spillage of large amounts of protein molecules from the blood as it traverses the kidney's filtering units.

I was, to be exact, her third specialist.

She knew just enough to write down more questions on her yellow legal pad, and to consume more time than we had allotted to pose these questions, one at a time, with deliberation and precision that would have made her lawyer son proud.

Her son surfaced from 1200 miles away quite early in our patient–physician relationship. He was on a mission to assess my competence and assure my cooperation. No further tests were to be ordered on his mother, he commanded, and no further medications prescribed, without my checking with him first.

Still fairly early in my relationship with this woman, I now found both of them annoying. At the end of the day in the office, I phoned him to discuss his letter. Acknowledging how difficult it must be as her only son helping his mother through this ordeal from such a long distance, I explained that because his mother was of sound mind, and because she had clearly instructed me that I could “update” her son from time to time but that her care would be between her and me, he had no right, legally or otherwise, to intrude …