Lawyer, MD

[rowyn]

There's a local lawyer who holds a medical degree. I don't know anything about him beyond the advertisements for his law practice: "Put a doctor in your court!" Naturally, he handles personal injury suits.

I can't help wondering what motivated him to get both degrees. Did the cost of malpractice insurance destroy his practice as a physician, and he figured 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'? Had he witnessed egregious cases of injured patients unable to afford care due to inept lawyers, and figured he'd do more good as a lawyer? Did he love school so much that as soon as he got one degree, he looked around to see what other schooling options he could devote several years of his life to? Did he wake up one morning and think 'I know what my life needs: more debt! What's the most expensive kind of schooling I could get?'

I don't know. It just makes me wonder.

Comments

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

Your post reminded me of this Michigan lawyer who has ads on the Classic Rock radio station and other rock stations.

His ads say that he is the only lawyer you want to have in court with you for a DUI, whether it's that 1st, 2nd, or 3rd offense! I'll help you get back home and get back to your life! I can't help but hearing: I'll have you driving home from the bar again by next Monday!!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

He sounds more focussed and sensible than my friend who got a PhD in physics, couldn't get a good job in it, and then got a PhD in classics to improve his employment chances. That didn't work either.

[nkcmike.livejournal.com]

Former KC mayor Charles Wheeler had both medical and law degrees. Even while in office, he was a practicing pathologist.

What prompts such a thing? Hard to say. Disenchantment? Fascination with learning? Steely-eyed calculation?

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

Certainly the working hours are better.

There's a reason M.D. interns do 72-hour shifts: any real practice that can get called into the emergency room, actually does 72-hour shifts.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

What's the reasoning behind 72 hour shifts when most people are useless after 24 hours awake?

[zaimoni.livejournal.com]

While I am here courtesy of one of those 72-hour shifts in 1992 (back when I was in ICU 40 days and 40 nights), I don't have the inside information that explains why that hospital didn't have any backup pulmonologists available to enable more humane work scheduling.

Given how few M.D. graduates there are, this isn't understaffing.