Doctor, Doctor, Don't Give Me The News

I have defended some attorneys against some pretty silly bar complaints before, but I have yet to see one as stupid as this doctor faces. A woman complains to the medical board that her doctor told her that (1) she was obese and (2) needed to lose weight.

Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state.
"I told a fat woman she was obese," Bennett says.

"I tried to get her attention. I told her, 'You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.'"

That is what I call sound advice.

Her complaint, filed about a year ago, was initially investigated by a panel of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, which recommended that Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern. The board rejected the suggestion in December and asked the attorney general's office to investigate.

Bennett rejected that office's proposal that he attend a medical education course and acknowledge that he made a mistake.

Well, what was the mistake? Was she really a skinny bulemic in need of a meal that stayed down? Or was she one of the healthy obese people? Otherwise, I have a hard time seeing what his mistake was.

Other overweight patients have come to Bennett's defense.

"What really makes me angry is he told the truth," Mindy Haney told WMUR-TV on Tuesday. "How can you punish somebody for that?"

Haney said Bennett has helped her lose more than 150 pounds, but acknowledged that she initially didn't want to listen.

Really, now. Don't we all know that is the case here.

Everyone is a victim. Everyone is offended. The nation of thin skinned wussies grows by numbers, and apparently by pounds.

I am getting pretty offended at so much offensiveness.