A doctor blames a patient for his infection. The subsequent hesitation to seek care almost costs him his life.

Update:
Sorry, the story was free yesterday. You can use BugMeNot for the password, but here is an excerpt:

Robert is a 44-year-old carpenter with a large infection on his left shoulder. The infection needs a small surgical procedure so it can begin to heal properly. Robert went to his doctor with the hopes of finding some relief from the pain.

The doctor refused to treat the infection and referred Robert to the emergency room. That in itself would be disappointing, but the doctor went on to lambast Robert for causing the infection himself by using IV drugs and blamed him for his illness.

And the truth is that he did cause the infection, perhaps by using a dirty needle or maybe by injecting dirty drugs, or both.

But what is the doctor’s role? What of the person who comes into the clinic with chest pain but has spent a life eating steak, or the hypertensive who has not taken her medication as instructed, or the lifelong runner who needs a knee replacement? Do we turn them away because they caused their own illness?

Why are these patients held to a different standard than the alcoholic or drug user?

It is the doctor’s job to care for the sick and needy. Can a doctor make moral decisions about the cause of a patient’s illness and only treat those that are random occurrences or only those that are socially acceptable?

Well, society provides doctors with many privileges and rights that are not granted to the layperson. In exchange, the expectation is that the physician will provide care to all even when risky, difficult, inconvenient or frustrating. The self-interest of the physician should always take a secondary role to the interest of the sick person. We have a moral obligation not to refuse care to those we dislike or find unpleasant. Even in a war zone, physicians provide care regardless of what side they are on.

Robert decided not to go to the ER out of fear of again being treated as less than human. A week later — and with a distrust of the medical profession — he came to a free clinic where I work with a raging fever, and the infection had spread to his entire arm.