Not My Patient Anymore

Transcript

Oh, hey. I do. I recognize you.

I'm really sorry. Yes, okay. Yeah, I remember.

I haven't seen you for, gosh, it's been what, a year? Year and a half? You know, I'm really sorry.

Please don't take this personally. I just, I see a lot of patients. I have a very busy practice here in the hospital.

Yeah, I do remember your case. So, well, I guess, how are you? Has everything been okay since you got out of the hospital? Good, I'm really glad to hear that.

Now, you had a couple specialists when you were here. I assume they wanted to continue following up for a while. Yeah, you've been cleared, huh? That's great news.

That's really great news. It does. It makes me really, really excited.

Really happy. Here's the thing, like, well, I have a lot of patients. I see a lot of people.

And, you know, I get to, I work hard for my patients. I try to get them healthy, get them back to living their lives, give them their lives back in a lot of cases. But then I don't ever see them again.

You know, since I'm, since I'm based in the hospital here, after I get patients out, they're not following up with me. And so, yeah, I kind of have to treat them and help them heal and let them go. And so it's not very often that I get a lot of, you know, follow up like this, where I get to see someone and see that my efforts and my team's efforts and their efforts all came together and that they're well.

It's just really nice when I get a chance like this to see someone thriving. Yes, I'm really excited. I'm excited to know that things are working out for you.

I'm really excited that we were able to make a difference. Oh, I appreciate that, but you don't need to flatter me. I'm good at what I do.

I'm very good at what I do, but I'm part of a team. It's a multidisciplinary team. You had a lot of folks taking care of you, a lot of specialists, a lot of highly trained nurses and technicians and other professionals.

And I can't take full credit for that. No, I'll accept that. I was the team lead.

And I'm really glad that under my leadership and with my work and the work of those other people and yours, that you've made the recovery that you have. I'm so glad to see that. And I mean, from the flowers, I'm guessing that you came to see someone and just spreading some cheer.

Oh, OK. This friend of yours, a patient or? Patient or? Gotcha, employee.

Well, I guess that would explain why you're in the employee parking deck, wouldn't it? Someone you're interested in then? Boyfriend or love interest? No, just platonic.

So you just bring flowers to all of your friends? Ah, well, that makes sense. That's that's just a really sweet thing for you to do.

It really is. Well, it's like I said, it's great to see you. I'm really glad you're doing so well and I hope everything keeps.

Huh? Huh? Yeah, what is it? It's OK, it's OK, I understand.

Yes, yes, yes, it was interesting is the way I would describe it. Well, you know. It happens, you know, people say things when they're under sedation.

We don't take it seriously. We knew that, you know, you were disinhibited. You had medicines on board there.

You you were not in complete command of your mind and your decision making. And so you said things that normally you would have had more of a filter for. Well, no, I'm very flattered that you asked me out.

I really am. I just didn't. You know, I saw it for what it was, that as flattered as I am, it was it was the drugs talking.

I don't need you to apologize. OK, it's not you didn't overstep your boundaries. Apologize.

OK, it's not you didn't overstep anything. OK, it would be one thing if you were totally lucid, pushing on that kind of stuff, you know, and there's the ethics to consider, right? I'm a doctor, your patient.

It's it's not something that can happen. But with you still anesthetized from your procedure, it it put a smile on my face. It.

But it's, you know, it's not something where I took it seriously. OK. Well, I mean, like I said, people say stuff and.

What? What are you talking about, Casanova? I didn't say that all my patients are asking me out.

I just said that people say stuff. OK, yeah, it has happened a couple of times. I don't know it.

Five, maybe, I don't know. It's it's it's something that I haven't really paid attention to or counted. It's not like I keep a tally.

Yeah, what? Well, they say there's a little bit of truth to everything, right? The well, you get drugged and maybe the filter comes off.

I get it. Hang on, so. I'm going to have to stop you right there.

I. I see where you're going with this. And I I'm really flattered.

OK, I'm really flattered. But like I said, there's. It's not something that.

Like, there's the ethical issue. There's there's a power differential. It's not a relationship on equal footing with a patient and a doctor.

And, you know, and I I could get in some serious, serious hot water, you know, professionally. It's just. Well, yeah, I'm not your doctor anymore, but I was your doctor.

And and if you had to come back into the hospital again. Then. No, I.

You're right. There are other physicians who could take you on as a patient if they needed to. I just.

I just I don't know, is it? I mean. Is is it appropriate? Is it acceptable to date someone who used to be your patient? Well.

Just concerned about it. You know, it's important to me that I do the right thing, that I do the ethical thing, that I do the moral thing. And I don't want to overstep and get into areas that are just.

Improper and professionally unsavory and unacceptable. No, that's not at all what I'm saying. No, no, it's not my way of saying that I'm not interested.

I. That was skillfully done. You planned that, didn't you? You're getting me to admit that I'm interested.

Touché. Yeah, go ahead. That's that's fair to say that the power is not.

Unequal anymore, is it? We're not in that same dynamic, that same power differential that we were. Where are you now?