There is only one clear, objective, place to draw the line where you can be consistent: the beginning.

BTW, doctors have been disciplined for fraud for writing untruthful work excuses.

You might look a little less idiotic yourself if you refrained from beating people over the head with the obvious in your attempts to smear your opponents. I think it’s pretty obvious the guy wasn’t actually physically ill at the time he requested the note or the whole issue of the doctor having to lie about the sick note would have been moot, and the article pointless. The point I am making about him having HIV is that within the confines of that illness and the known adverse effects of the drugs used to treat it, it would not have been hard to find an acceptable excuse for giving the guy a few days off that few employers would question. It certainly wouldn’t require “scouring the chart” to find an excuse.

What is this guy really was sick and suffering an adverse reaction from his drugs severe enough to warrant some time off in your judgement, but wanted to keep the issue of his HIV confidential? Would you honor the patient’s right to confidentiality and write him a note that disguised his sickness as something else, or would you refuse to write him a note unless he allowed you to mention that he had HIV, as to do otherwise would be “unethical” Really curious to see the answers to this one.

If the prestige of the medical profession hasn’t been irreparably damaged by:

–250,000 unnecessary deaths a year
–$170 billion a year in fraud
–Doctors offices that look like marketing HQ for drug companies.
–Medical blogs

Then I doubt writing some guy a sick note is going to have much of an impact.

“It is not a healthy thing that we have become so institutionalized that people are afraid to talk to their employer about such things, and feel that they must play manipulative institutional games for such a simple human request as time off to visit a son going off to war. Lying to authority is for slaves–not free men.”

Brave words from someone who works in an industry where you can literally kill people and still expect to keep your job. Out in the real world, where the rest of us live, you can lose your job for looking a little disheveled at work, or for taking too many bathroom breaks due to adverse reactions to your HIV drugs. In the real world, most people with severe chronic illnesses are utterly dependent on their jobs to get coverage for the medical care they need. If this guy loses his job, it is likely he will lose his medical benefits and with them, his life, so his need for a sick note is hardly cavalier. He is no doubt already walking a fine line with his employer due to the fact he is HIV positive and therefore perceived as either gay or a drug addict, and is something of a liability to his employer due to the increased cost of insuring him. I can fully understand why he might be a little reticent about asking for any special favors from his employer. Non of this makes him a “slave.”

The doctor in question is more of a stickler than I would be. That’s a judgment call.

But instead of the hypothetical two days off. What if it’s THREE days off? Three days triggers FMLA. Now imagine same employee presents you with a FMLA form where you have to describe the illness under penalty for false statements.

Now what?

You cannot expect anyone to lie for you. If you want to lie – it is between you and your conscience, but you cannot expect others to do it for you. Even asking someone to lie for you is inconsiderate – you are putting someone into a bad situation: either they have to refuse which is always unpleasant or go against their conscience. I hate when people do it.

@feminizedwesternmale: Leftists and the Godless always confuse the difference between needs and wants
This is totally off-topic, but what does one’s religion or politics has to do with anything? Do you know if the patient or a doctor in the story were religious or not? I don’t agree with Payne, but for all we know she could be religous. There are plenty of religious people who lie and cheat and commit crimes (sometimes in the name of religion), and there are plenty of honest atheists. Religious in America confuse religion with morality.

From the article:

“From my nursing assistant’s notes, I saw he was doing well. Results from his blood tests, CD4 (specialized immune system cells) counts and HIV viral load (the amount of HIV virus in the blood) looked equally good, and his physical exam was unremarkable.”

and

“I scoured my mind and the chart — for something, anything, that would justify a note from me and allow him some time off. I asked him more questions. “Do you have any fever, cough, congestion, reaction to the medication?” But he was healthy; no tests were required; no medication needed change.”

Next time try reading the article. You will sound a little less idiotic when you rant.

As the writer stated, the issue is between the patient and his employer, not asking the doctor to lie.

PS: I am ex-military, if the guy was my employee I would give hime time off with no questions asked. But that is not the point.

Eventually your patients will figure that out, and the doctor-patient relationship is shot to hell.

“Do I really need this treatment or is the old boy behind on his boat payments?”

The prestige given to the medical profession to move so much of other people’s wealth around is predicated on the belief by society that doctors are scupulously honest. In other words, the ability to actually help a sick person get leave from work with a mere note is undermined by abusing that.

I have had to explain that to many patients and do not recall ever losing an established patient over that point.

It is not a healthy thing that we have become so institutionalized that people are afraid to talk to their employer about such things, and feel that they must play manipulative institutional games for such a simple human request as time off to visit a son going off to war. Lying to authority is for slaves–not free men.

This may comes a shocker to you but I recognize by the fact the guy has a job that HIV is not an automatic ticket out of work, but you fail to recognize that the side effects of HAART therapy are often severe enough to warrant at least a little time off. There may be obvious reasons why this guy can’t discuss this issue with his employer and needs a better cover from a doctor.

As for my alleged “doctor hatred,” if you and your fellows can’t handle criticism of your profession without resorting to cheap accusations of bigotry, then you should avoid blogs other than those that only allow comment from the hallelujah chorus. Stick to the old ladies who think you walk on water because you have an MD after your name. Most of us have been disavowed of the notion of the alleged moral purity of doctors the hard way, and therefore don’t consider you above reproach by default.

Many doctors don’t seem to have any problem with lying to cover up the abuses of their more incompetent and unethical colleagues, even when they maim and kill patients. So don’t get up on your moral high horse over a sick note, as there’s not a one of you who doesn’t know who the dangerously incompetent doctors are in your local community but you are content to enable them with your silence.