[Insanity! WTF!] If a patient knowingly endangers himself, can a doctor deny him medical tests? The message showed up on my desk one day while I was seeing a patient. Its choppy shorthand read: “Admits to injecting testosterone. Now decreased libido. Call back to discuss.” “He needs a testosterone level!” the father insisted. As I listened and pondered my response, I grappled with a nagging question: If this kid had decided to put his body at risk, despite all he surely knew about the dangers of getting juiced, did I owe him a largely unnecessary test? Such a test, which can range in price from $50 to a few hundred dollars, would merely confirm that he had taken steroids, but it would not change how I treated him. I’d be ordering it just to make him feel better psychologically. I also secretly wondered whether giving the teen and his dad what they wanted was “rewarding” his poor decision to juice. And, since this IDIOT of a doctor has no idea at all on how to treat Androgen Induced Hypogonadism (AIH), he makes the decision to do NOTHING. Is this what medical care has come to? Providing NO treatment based on IGNORANCE. This is SCARY.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:07:33 +0000
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