Secretly recording doctors during visits

[thinkmaw]

Thank you again Blue Dog. That corresponds closely with the legal position over here and I am glad to learn about the position in USA where as regards production of records - if indeed not other matters as well - as I have said, my impression from this site at least, is that ‘you guys' are used to handling the matter routinely and candidly, and complying with the relevant law, which makes all the relevant difference.

Unfortunately, although the basic framework of the law seems similar, in a fashion which I doubt can be divorced from medical pressure groups, there is very limited specific statutory remedy for, say, idle, dismissive and arrogant doctors simply not bothering to produce all the relevant documents, to their patients within the relevant time in the UK. They have weeks in which to comply, and sadly, time and time again they simply don't do what they are quite properly told by their patients, or don't until, if they are really lucky, they get told by a prize like me, on a patient's behalf. I make no apology for putting a metaphorical toe up a doctor where the interests of my clients will not be served without it.

LOL! Punchcap. I entrely accept that you might not want me as your patient, a fact which troubles me not at all, and I readily concede that my last post was full of typos. Usually I have a go at at least reducing the number before posting, but I was running out of time and decided to stay with the substance rather than worry about the form. I will try to do better next time, though tonight, it's getting pretty late and I am good and tired so this one may not be much better. Apologies for my poor typing and I trust you will feel free to ask if it actually renders something unintelligible. But the staggering assumption that doctors gain some monopoly on 'conscience' unavailable to other mortals in general and lawyers in particular always makes me laugh, in whatever form it is aired. Ever heard of eg Harold Shipman, or the Bristol Heart Specialists, or the brutal treatment of mostly elderly and bed-ridden patients recently exposed at another hospital over here which several doctors knew all about and did nothing to prevent? Does none of that sort of thing ever get exposed in the USA? For goodness sake, becoming a doctor does not necessarily make anyone a saint anymore than, with obvious exception of myself, becoming a lawyer necessarily turns anyone into a devil.

I don't wish to seem rudely to ignore you Dilated but, if you have actually been following the thread with any care, you will see that I am aiming to keep close to the thread's principal and original topic; and as regards record production, although as I have said, there are in my view some germane points, I don't want to get drawn into re-explaining points to you which I see no evidence you have really attempted to understand in the first place. Personal animus of the nature you have just mustered frankly strikes me as childish, and adds little or nothing to the debate.

But on the score of what you term ‘bad-mouthing', as regards me personally, please feel free to continue, if that is your biscuit. I really can't be bothered to reach for an ‘anti-abuse' button without a great deal more provocation. A lawyer who courts popularity, and will do anything other than find behaviour such as yours risible is in the wrong profession. I have been insulted by experts, which on the evidence so far, you very clearly are not among. (Some 'conventions' would ask for a ‘smilie' or something here, but I hate the dratted things.)

I hope to pick up the question of legal admissibilty or otherwise of covert recordings in evidence tomorrow, which I can only urge you guys to think about very carfeully - if or in so far as some of you at least haven't already. There are or at least may be, it seems to me, some rational and indeed courteous people here and I would like to learn from them (indeed I already have) - in return for which I hope I have something to contribute to a very specific thread started by a medic, not by me.

tm. V late Friday, my time.

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[thinkmaw]

The result in the Amwell View case, about 5 years ago, which I was referring to earlier somewhat surprised many of those involved, I have been told. The fairly senior tribunal divided the covertly recorded potential evidence into two notional halves. There was the recording of the way the complainant was actually treated in person during the disciplinary and grievance procedure and the continuing recording which, not necessarily through any fault or contrivance of the complainant, rolled on when she wasn't in the same room as the bosses. It seems that from the outset she had a tape-recorder running in her briefcase and she was asked to leave the room, I think, while there was ‘quasi-judicial' deliberation, amongst the bosses as to what their ‘ruling' should be be.

The tribunal excluded the latter part of the recording but admitted the ‘in-person' part in full.

Well, I'm with them all the way as regards the would-be evidence that by accident or otherwise was effectively ‘bugged'. Also, like the tribunal members there, I think, I don't find the complainant's way of proceeding particularly ‘attractive' (i.e the covert bit) in the first place. But, as a key part of their reasoning, the tribunal members compared the position with a hypothetical complainant, had she the skills, having taken a full contemporaneous speed-shorthand note of everything that happened, which she would have got into court without difficulty. Indeed, in one version of a report\digest which I can't currently put my hands on, I believe it was suggested that ‘in-person recording' in such circumstances, covert or otherwise, could be legitimately considered as just an extension of somebody's right to take full notes of many types of consultation\interview in the first place. (And please see Blue Dog's and Hopeful's posts on the importance of patient note-taking)

This decision has stood for a while now and it has been explicitly or implicitly assumed, by some commentators in both legal and medical journals over here, that it would apply in doctor-patient and lawyer-client situations as well. Now let's get rid of the ‘covert bit' by telling patients\clients, openly and in advance, that we won't raise any formal or attempted legal objections to their keeping audio-recordings of our expensive advice for their private purposes if that's what they want to do, huh? And, on reflection, we might think it more confidence-inspiring and ‘trust-building', more professional and mature, in fact, to keep whatever we may, privately, think of a patient\client so behaving to ourselves.

I, personally, have no conceptual or indeed practical objection whatsoever, to being recorded in consultation, although, so far as I am aware, I seldom have been. Indeed, I can think of some very positive benefits that might have arisen for both sides of the consulting room, had such a recording been taken on a handful of occasions. But even if, for whetever strange reason, I privately resented such an activity, I miss the part where it would be a good idea to try make that a problem for any of my clients eg. by attempting to 'ban', or trying to heap the situation up with legal small print, undertakings, waivers, whatever (some of which I would know to be of doubtful, or at least untested, validity anyway). Seems to me that would just be arrogance.

I think the essence of the perceived ‘problem', here, for any professional, is ‘communication' not ‘contract.' Anybody still disagree?

tm. 3.25pm, my time.