Editor's Note: Doctors and lawyers have a love-hate relationship, using the word "relationship" loosely. Other than banning ultimate fighting, they agree on little. They often square off in court, the one as expert witness, the other as cross-examiner. When they face off in the hospital, the Esquire is usually very vulnerable and must rely on the doctor's Hippocrates Oath.
This difficult relationship can be deadly as reported below from Victoria, Canada as to the sequelae of an encounter of the law and medicine. This note is verbatim from a handwritten, blood-stained parchment we received. We have been able to verify its authenticity.
Dr. David Naysmith*
Victoria, BC
October 15, 2011
Dear Lloyd:
I was certainly chuffed to have received an "official" duhaime.org t-shirt.
I
was so pleased in fact (if not in law) that I wore it to work at the hospital the next day.
I take full responsibility for the result of my action in that regard. I
probably should have been more sensitive to the needs of my fellow surgeons
when wearing my new I LOVE LAW™ shirt into the surgeons' lounge.
As I proceeded from the lounge, I entered the surgeons' change room still
feeling quite proud of my new acquisition. However, as the old chestnut
goes, pride doth indeed precede a downfall.
Several of my colleagues greeted me with a puzzled look and knotted brow.
Some, however, were overtly hostile and began buffeting me about against the
lockers. It was then that I realized, alas too late, that they had
misinterpreted the logo on my new apparel. Just after the first of several
blows rained upon my head and just milliseconds before losing consciousness
I remember one of them, a urologist of some renown (I think, although it is
all now just a blur) saying:
"So, you like lawyers do you?"
I attempted
to correct him and say:
"No, it says, I LIKE LAW™!"
However, with a mouth
full of blood and teeth rattling about like so many Chiclets™ in a cup,
articulation failed me.
Time in the world of the unconscious is relative and defies quantification.
However, I believe that minutes if not hours passed and I awoke, alone in
the change room. Through the undamaged eye which, thankfully, remained
capable of opening, I discovered that I had been catheterized (without
lubricant it seems), had the sense of having had three colonoscopies and
found a very tidy scar on my left flank just over my kidney with a small
card taped to the adjacent skin. The card bore the logo of the Provincial
Organ Bank™ and was inscribed with the words:
"Thank you for your generous
and unselfish donation".
I'm still not quite sure what that was all about.
Upon finding my trousers and attempting to slip them on, I was then confounded by
a mass of blue flesh in groin. It appeared that my testicles had been tied
in a very neat surgeon's knot; a veritable Gordian Knot™ of gonads as it
were.
Although probably easily tied, such a knot is truly a Rubik's Cube
when it comes to the undoing. However, effort was rewarded in that once
freed, my scrotum returned to it's once delightfully pink tone and the
pulverizingly painful ache I had become accustomed to faded to a more
tolerable level, something akin to childbirth.
Once reassembled, I was pleased to see that my new shirt had escaped,
unscathed and still proudly displaying the Duhaime.org I LOVE LAW™ logo.
Again, I must stress that you should take no sense of ownership of any part
of this incident. It was my own insensitivity that lead to the somewhat
violent, but understandable, reaction of my surgical colleagues.
Thanks again for honouring me with the gift of one of your shirts.
* Dr. Naysmith™ is, like, a doctor. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia. In 1984, he opened his plastic surgery practice. He is a UBC-appointed Clinical Associate Professor. Dr. Naysmith™, now that he's finally sewed his pants, is a fine looking ice hockey player with a quick and deadly release although afraid of ice shavings, sometimes prone to a bending of the rules and, where available, fisticuffs.
- As a tribute to Dr. Naysmith™, we have printed further set of I LOVE LAW t-shirts which may be purchased for $25 CDN or US or equivalent, by cheque, sent to the Duhaime Legal Information Corporation, 345 Vancouver Street, Victoria, British Columbia V8V 3T3 [CAN]. That'll pay for the t-shirt and postage.
- Indirectly, the funds will be used for the solace and care of Dr. Naysmith™.