In spite of the fact that the American Medical Association runs television ads encouraging patients to keep asking their doctors questions until the patient is certain he or she fully understands the doctor’s findings and recommendations, many doctors hate to be asked questions. While the AMA ads encourage each patient to bring a family member or friend to doctor appointments, to help make sure all important information is received and understood, doctors hate it even more when family members ask them questions. We found this out the hard way after Dr. VanThiel left Loyola University Hospital and Linda’s liver care was switched to a series of other doctors there.
Linda’s professional success continued in 2001, despite the fact she developed varicose veins in her throat which would rupture, causing bleeding into her stomach. The problem with that situation is that there is no pain or other warning this is going on until the patient has lost so much blood into the stomach that he or she begins throwing up blood. By the time this happens, the person may have nearly bled to death, and immediate emergency attention with multiple transfusions becomes essential.
Under Linda as Director, the Oak Lawn Center was the first store in its group to achieve $100,000 accrual revenue in a single calendar month, for July, 2001. Linda received a fax from her bosses dated August 2, 2001, stating: “A SUPER CONGRATULATIONS TO OAK LAWN FOR AN OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE DURING THE MONTH OF JULY. OAK LAWN IS THE FIRST CENTER TO REACH THE ACCRUAL INCENTIVE OF 100K. THEY ARE AN INSPIRATION TO ALL OF US AND CONTINUE TO SHOW THAT GOALS CAN BE REACHED IF WE REACH FOR THEM. GREAT JOB OAK LAWN TEAM!” The Oak Lawn Center achieved annual gross revenue for calendar year 2001 of $839,633.7, and annual net operating income for calendar 2001 of $146,228.33. Linda’s gross earnings as Director of the Oak Lawn Center for calendar year 2001 were $87,667.00. In 2001 Linda achieved three trip awards for $100,000 cash in during a single month, plus an additional trip award for the $100,000 accrual achievement.
In the summer of 2001, Linda had an episode of bleeding from the varicose veins in her esophagus, and nearly died. Dr. Shah, one of the liver doctors who took over her care after Dr. VanThiel left Loyola, wanted to perform an operation on Linda, which he said should help with her bleeding problem. After reviewing the medical literature on the proposed operation, we had a lot of questions about it. Each time we asked one doctor on the team something, that doctor would defer the answer to a different doctor. So, we decided what was required was to get all the doctors together in the same room so we could get all our questions about the proposed surgery answered at one time, instead of getting the run around from the doctors. We even sent each of the doctors a written list of the questions we had, so they all could be prepared for the meeting we were proposing.
Instead of participating in what we expected would be an efficient exchange of information, Dr. Shah was so offended by our submission of written questions to him that he fired Linda as a patient, and refused to take care of her after that, as you can see from the following two letters:
July 9, 2002
Dr. Leonard Vertuno
Chief of Staff Fax: 708-216-9033
Dr. Anthony Barbato
Chief Executive Officer Fax: 708-216-6227
Loyola University Medical Center
2160 South First Avenue
Maywood, Illinois 60153
Re: Linda
Medical Record Number 0862374
Dear Doctors Vertuno and Barbato:
My wife Linda has been a patient at your facility for a long time. Dr. Reena Jabamoni, Dr. Gerard Arahna, Dr. Juan Angelats and Dr. Ellen R. Gaynor took excellent care of Linda during her breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy. A number of other doctors at Loyola have also cared thoughtfully and professionally for Linda for a number of other, less serious conditions.
Recently, however, we have run into resistance from certain doctors who apparently don’t think they need to answer questions from a patient concerning their proposed course of treatment. Rather than write a long letter and take up your time unnecessarily, I am enclosing for each of you a copy of a memo I forwarded to Lydia Stewart and Sue Tyson in your patient relations department, and to Drs. Gaynor, Shah and Weiss, concerning the questions we have, requesting a meeting with the doctors concerned in this aspect of Linda’s care and treatment, so we could get all our questions answered.
Linda had scheduled a repeat CT with contrast for the morning of June 28. Lydia Stewart had tentatively scheduled a meeting with the three doctors for June 27, but the meeting was called off because Dr. Weiss was unavailable. Now, Linda is scheduled for surgery by Dr. Shah on July 12, but we still have not been able to set a date for the meeting with the doctors. We will have to postpone Linda’s surgery until we can get our questions answered.
Today I phoned patient relations four times in an effort to speak with Ms. Stewart to find out why it is taking so long to set up a brief meeting with three of your physicians to discuss patient questions concerning their recommendations for care and treatment. I even left dates when both Linda and I would be available for such a meeting. No one from patient relations called me back to schedule the meeting, or even to explain why setting up the meeting is so difficult.
Both Linda and I are extremely frustrated by the lack of response to our simple request. We feel abandoned. If the doctors at Loyola don’t want to care for Linda any longer, they should say so, and recommend qualified physicians elsewhere who can take care of her so needed treatments are not delayed further.
Please let us know what we must do to get Linda the care she needs.
August 19, 2002
Ms. Jody Palmer
Loyola University Medical Center
2160 South First Avenue
Maywood, Illinois 60153
Re: Linda
Medical Record Number 0862374
Via Fax To: 708-216-0505
Dear Ms. Palmer:
I want to thank you for arranging to have certain of Linda’s films delivered to her room in the MICU this morning.
As I am certain you know by now, after Linda’s last office visit with Dr. Shah to follow up on her July, 2002 hospitalization for gastrointestinal bleeding, we received a letter dated July 29, 2002 from Dr. Shah in which he made it clear he no longer wants to be Linda’s physician. After receiving Dr. Shah’s letter, Linda and I began looking for a new doctor at a different hospital to care for her liver disease.
The earliest appointment we had been able to schedule for her with a new doctor was October 22, 2002. Unfortunately, before the process of changing doctors could be completed, Linda began vomiting blood last Saturday night, and I brought her to Loyola’s emergency room, through which she was admitted. Early this morning, as Linda was being taken down to the GI lab for an exploratory esophagoscopy, Dr. Shah asked her to consent to being transferred to the University of Chicago Hospital immediately after the procedure. She declined, as she has not even met any of the doctors there, and they have none of the voluminous records, films, pathology slides and other materials from Loyola which reflect her lengthy history of treatment there.
We understand that Dr. Shah no longer wishes to care for Linda, and we are doing everything we can to have her seen at the University of Chicago as soon as possible after she can be discharged from Loyola. In order to accomplish this mutual goal, however, we will need copies of the records of all Linda’s care and treatment at Loyola over the years, including all hospital, clinic and other medical records, imaging studies, pathology slides and the like from the 1980’s to the present.
We realize that it may take a few days for these materials to be assembled and copied, as some of the records will be on microfilm, and the total volume of material is quite extensive. We strongly believe, however, that Linda’s new doctor should have all of these records. We will pick all the records from Loyola and I will personally deliver them to Linda’s new doctor. I would like to hear from you by the close of business today, to let me know how soon the complete records will be available for pick up, so I can arrange an appointment with the new doctor as soon thereafter as possible.
I am certain I do not need to remind you of the urgency of accomplishing the mutually desired goal of an uninterrupted transfer of Linda’s care to her new liver doctor. Your cooperation is appreciated. You can call me at any hour on my cellular telephone to let me know when the records will be ready for me to pick up.
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