Date sent:              Fri, 12 May 2000 13:11:00 -0500
From:                   Stan or Joan Snyder <[log in to unmask]>
To:                     "Dr.Robert A Fink" <[log in to unmask]>,
        "Dr. Charlie Meyers" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Would you please help a fellow listmember?

> Good Morning Gentlemen:
>      I don't know that we have ever had the opportunity to exchange
> ideas directly back & forth over the PD listserv, but I need your help
> for a fellow list-member who is in terrible danger, I fear. Her name
> (and you might well remember her) is Jennifer Smith. She is an
> early-onset PWP, who up until a year & a half ago lived with her older
> (yet her soul-mate) husband in the Great Smoky Mountains & worked as
> T-shirt artists. She a very happy until her world began to fall apart.
> First, the dxes of PD, then the death of her beloved husband, then a
> frantic call to come to her parents home in California to nurse her
> elderly & infirm mother through a risky surgery. When she finally made
> it back home to her mountains, she was under so much stress & became
> very depressed. One night, after a series of particularly bad nights
> in the chat room (where we had become very close), we all felt that
> intervention was called for before she killed herself. I kept her on
> the phone, got her to tell me her friend's name & phone number & typed
> it into the chatroom screen. Another friend in chat called Jen's
> friend, who immediately started to make her way to Jen's cabin.
> Meanwhile, we took turns, (1 of our friends, a nurse from Belgium),
> phoning & keeping the others up-to-date in the chartroom. Finally, her
> friend arrived just in time to help Jen to save her life. She was put
> into the psych ward at a city hospital & not left alone...even after
> she was released several weeks later...with her meds straightened out
> and she seemed to be doing so well. She was picking up the pieces &
> going on with her life...and then, another urgent call from her
> parents. She packed up & left immediately for California. Since being
> there, she had some seizures, I can't begin to tell you about them or
> what caused them; only that they frightened her enough (along with the
> urging of friends from the chatroom), to check into a hospital for a
> complete medical workup. Instead, after very few tests, she has been
> told that she doesn't have PD-that it is all in her mind and taken off
> all of her pd meds...but she is loaded upon their meds to the point
> that she is either crying & hysterical or subdued & listless when one
> of us call her. They have convinced her that her only recourse is to
> sell her beloved cabin & stay in California under their care-this is
> something that she would never do in her state of lucidity; but we all
> feel that her power of reasoning has been compromised. I understand
> that I am asking you to do an enormous favor but could you possibly
> get ahold of her doctors at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert,
> CA and make them aware of your perspective as doctors with PD and to
> possibly make them a bit more understanding of the special needs of PD
> patients?? Thank you n advance for your caring & compassion & anything
> that you might be able to do. Sincerely, joan P.S. Jen has this
> terrible fear of being locked away and never coming out again.
>
>
> ___________________________________
> Joan E. Snyder    48/10
> [log in to unmask]
> <http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/genugten/snyder.htm>
> "Hang tough.....no way through it but to do it."
>            Chris-in-the-Morning (Northern Exposure)
>

Joan,

There is no way that a stranger (even a doctor) can obtain access to
medical records (or to the treating physicians) of others without a
direct consent/request from the patient whose records are being
requested.

If one of us were able to obtain the records (or talk to the doctors),
that would still not give us enough information to make any kind of
diagnosis or medical recommendations.  If Jennifer could somehow
request that her doctors speak to me, I would be willing to do so, but
she would have to make the request (in writing).  All of this is for
purposes of the protection of patient confidentiality.

BTW, I myself do not have PD, but I treat patients who do, and have
had a relative with the condition.


Best,

Bob


**********************************************
Robert A. Fink, M. D., F.A.C.S., P. C.
2500 Milvia Street  Suite 222
Berkeley, California  94704-2636
Telephone:  510-849-2555   FAX:  510-849-2557
WWW:  http://www.dovecom.com/rafink/

mailto:[log in to unmask]

"Ex Tristitia Virtus"

*********************************************