Withholding judgement

by Paul Kandarian

Admit it: you hear of a malpractice case where something went horribly wrong with a patient whose life is ruined, if not ended, and you immediately side with the plaintiff because there for the grace of whatever go us.

I was the same, figuring health care in this country is a hot mess (and it is), mostly due to the lack of universal coverage and the insanely complex billing system. Then one of the most interesting acting jobs I’ve ever had happened.

I was to portray a plaintiff about my age for a mock trial. He (I) had undergone a simple prostate biopsy for an elevated PSA test that his (my) urologist thought necessary. My character trusted his doc and went along with it. The odds were squarely in his favor that the procedure would go smoothly and he’d be found to be cancer free. He was cancer free – but the odds of the procedure going smoothly were horribly not in his favor. I don’t know what the numbers are, but what happened to this poor guy was horrific and odds-defying. You know how doctors have to tell you all the stuff that could happen, including the bad, even though the odds are slim something terrible would happen? That’s what happened to this guy I played. He got a systemic infection, nearly died and as a result, lost toes and fingertips to gangrene and the ability to move freely or sing or play the guitar or travel or bicycle – all the things he loved.

He was this close to retirement and he and his wife, both around 70, would see the world. But now his world was drastically reduced to day to day survival.

Mock trials are used in the legal system to test a case out. In this one, I read the case, the deposition, everything to get familiar with it. I also had to memorize a dozen or so pages of dialogue that I’d use when a lawyer in the mock trial questioned me. In this case, they were testing it before a jury who thought this was a real case being tried to see what their defendant’s chances would be, which would mean either fighting it or settling.

Going in, I figured that this doctor who did the prostate biopsy must be the epitome of evil. Then after my stint was done, I was alone in a room with him for several minutes and realized – he’s just like me, you, everyone, a guy doing a job he loved that went terribly wrong one day for whatever reason that was unintentional, a 40-something guy likely with a wife, kids, a house in the ‘burbs, a guy who went through all those rugged years of medical school and training to see it all go away on the back of the odds this would ever happen.

The facts of the case made me come away realizing this thing may not have been this guy’s fault – it could’ve just been crappy odds going against his patient, could be a case of all those horrible side effects they have to tell you are possible if remotely come to fruition. It was hardly a slam dunk after all, and I felt for the guy as we quietly chatted.

“This must have been your dream job, to study, work hard, become a doctor,” I told the young man, who was out of his element in a faux courtroom and not a real operating room.

He smiled sadly and sighed. He told me that despite the crushing debt of expensive malpractice insurance, it only covers a ridiculously low amount insurance and then the doc is on the hook for the rest if the case doesn’t go in his favor.

“This is why a lot of people don’t go into medicine,” he said quietly.

I chatted a bit more, looking at him for what he was: a professional with a great job and promising future. He had so much potential. He is one of us. And now, due to a tremendous stroke of misfortune for the man who suffered and this man before me said to have caused it, he is to many, the embodiment of evil.

I didn’t see that. I just saw this young doctor with a career ahead of him now facing the biggest challenge of it, not intending for an instant to do harm. And I guess the upshot is that in this life where we think we learn all we need to know from TV or newspapers or the savage frontier of social media, we don’t know squat. If you truly want to know a person, you have to meet the person or do the research and do what humanity thrives on and has lost: connection and truth.

We don’t know what we don’t know and ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s damaging when it’s blindly judgmental. We need to remember that we are all on this planet together doing our best, and to cut others some slack if we don’t know all the facts.

I only hope to remember that myself.