You're Ugly, Too.

An obese woman was so offended by her doctor's advice to lose weight, that she has filed a complaint against him:

Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state.

"I told a fat woman she was obese," Bennett says. "I tried to get her attention. I told her, 'You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.'"

He says he wrote a letter of apology to the woman when he found out she was offended.

Her complaint, filed about a year ago, was initially investigated by a panel of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, which recommended that Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern. The board rejected the suggestion in December and asked the attorney general's office to investigate.

The AG tried to get Dr Bennett to attend a reprogramming medical education course to cleanse him of his bad bedside manner. Bennett remains unmoved:

“Did I sleep with somebody? Did I give somebody drugs? Was I careless? No. End of story,” Bennett said. “That should have been the end of it.”

Some fat people are coming to the doctor's defense, pointing out that he's being investigated for telling the truth.

Anybody for a second opinion?

Comments

[christopher king]

Here's what I say about Dr. Bennett and the First Amendment:

http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2005/10/youre-so-obese-only-black-men-will.html

Let's get a grip, here folks. Dr. Terry Bennett's comments, in lilly-white New Hampshire, are not the same as a doctor telling a skinny black woman, "you're so skinny only white boys will like you," and if you can't see that, or comprehend why it's different in a context like this, you may be cursed with another physical ailment beyond the Good Doctor's bailiwick: Myopia.

Having dated leggy blondes to short brunettes and women of many body compositions between 4'10" to 6'2" and in between, I appreciate all sorts of women. But apparently some white professionals in the "Live Free or Die" state don't appreciate black men appreciating white women in that way because he used it as a scare tactic. Well that's pretty scary to me, folks, so I'm gonna file a complaint with the Seacoast Branch of the NAACP later today. Peace.

PS: His speech is not entirely protected by the First Amendment, as mine was and is in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. He relinquished a degree of his First Amendment Rights by agreeing to be subject to a regulatory board -- and he may even be governed by commercial, rather than general, Free Speech doctrines. I, on the other hand, was exercising a Fundamental right as a free negro (or caucasian) citizen to seek redress for a man who faced three (3) drawn guns, arrest and a body cavity search from undercover police who rousted him and eventually charged him with "loitering," which he beat. See my 16 Oct. blawg, "Open Complaint to NAACP Legal Defense Fund," which still has not been answered substantively.

-c