Two Years Later

I feel bad. I'm a doctor and I told this guy he had a year to live, at most. He has since quit his job, divorced his wife, taken eight vacations (two to Italy), married a young woman from Italy (not sure how young), spent all of his money (on vacations and such), announced to one of his sons that he's his favorite, and stopped recycling (even though he continues to drink milk). I don't even want to think about all those milk cartons sitting in landfills.

It turns out that I made a mistake. I thought he had a tumor, but now, two years later, it turns out it was just his second kidney (I thought we had removed it, but I was going off of memory, and didn't bother to check his records). He's due to come back into the office next week and I don't know what to say. And what if he sues? Help!

Honesty is always the best policy. In this case, honesty looks like:
1) There's no longer a tumor;
2) He hasn't been following his treatment regimen (which probably would've curtailed his carefree behavior);
3) Has he ever heard of getting a second opinion? If there's one thing all of us can take away from this, it's to GET A SECOND OPINION. This just applies to medical conditions, of course -- not psycho-analysis.

posted by Lawrence A. Fing @ 12:00 PM