5
Plans To Leave The State An Injunction To Stop O.P.C.’s Invasion Of Her Office
With the advice of her friends Dr. Barbara and Kenneth Good that she tries to leave the state as quickly as possible, Dr. Nora Phillips started to work right away on making plans to relocate. She began right after her long talk with Barbara.
She immediately prepared that very evening a draft for a Motion for an Injunction to invalidate and block the Health Department’s Demand. She canceled the next morning’s patients. In two hours she had reviewed her notes from the night before, wrote the Motion in a precise form, format and legal verbiage, took it in person to the courthouse and filed it with the State Supreme Court clerk. Driving from place to place, she also served in person two copies; one to the local OPC branch and the other to the local office of the State Attorney General. She was done by noon.
She had patients scheduled for that afternoon the first to be seen at two, so she had some free time; in between bites to her cold turkey sandwich, she made a couple of phone calls replying to two recent job offers she had received but ignored; they had been sitting on a corner of her desk. For one of them in particular, her prospect of getting a hospital job as a child neurologist as part of a multi specialty group associated with a large hospital was reasonable; plus she would not have to undergo delays in moving as she already had a license to practice in that state, Mass. All she had to do was to reactivate her license by paying a due yearly fee for that year; she had not paid it in years. The other offer, in the Sunshine State, if the first did not materialize, would take her a bit longer as she was not licensed there so she would have to apply and validate her medical license in that state from scratch. That could take months.
Dr. Phillips received a reply from the State Court Clerk within a week after she had filed her motion for an injunction against the Health Department’s demand for a total search of her records. She was told that the court would have to wait till they heard from the State Attorney General. Nothing happened for three weeks. Then she received a copy of the A.G.’s Counter Motion to Dismiss. And as Barbara’s husband, had already conveyed to her, Nora was given by the court clerk a date to argue her Motion for the injunction. — about three weeks hence, almost two months after she’d filed hers. But she could not defend it in front of judge Good: He had had to recuse himself because of knowing already Nora in person. Judge Good had told her to wait two weeks or so and then to request from the assigned judge a delay of the court appearance explaining that she had already an existing commitment far from the state and that she was not able to change that commitment.
Yes, she did exactly that, filing first with the court clerk her request for the delay of the Hearing when she would defend her Motion for the Injunction. And the assigned judge went along with her request allowing her a postponement of 40 days. Without wasting time, in the initial court day that she’d got canceled she went out east to Bostin for a visit to the group she had initially called in reply to their postcard. So far so good: The advertised position luckily was still open. She could fly there but preferred to drive the day before, a good seven hours on the interstate speedway if she went straight, though she took off from her office three full days to stop and see a friend of hers along the way in Pittsford, in Western Mass.
Nora Phillips had lunch with her friend at the Flavors of Indonesia restaurant in downtown Pittsford, not far from her old friend’s office, a small medical building of four family physicians.
“You are doing the right thing by moving out of your state ASAP,” told her Dr. Cynthia Peters, her friend there, an old acquaintance and pal from the time of their residence. “Once those wolves zero-in on you, they won’t give up. They do the same here in Mass. You probably should have started to plan your move much earlier, when you got the ‘First Count of Misconduct,’ perhaps even earlier in your practice when minor complaints against you started to go in.”
“I know I should have planned this earlier. But perhaps I still have time to leave before they pull my license… With the thorough background checks of doctors everywhere these days, I’ll never be able to reciprocate my license anywhere once they take it in my state. And they are chasing me for just disliked reports! With my type of specialty, always seeing complex cases with tricky, even contentious assessments, many, unhappy parents of disturbed kids, I should have seen this coming long ago…”
“Yeah, you really should have. Perhaps you should have even de-specialized yourself and become a G.P. like me.”
“Or perhaps at least I should have been in a large group, like yours; or best, joined the teaching staff of an academic institution with other neurologists, as I did for a year down in the big City right after I finished my fellowship… I was then well placed and reasonably paid, but I was bored with the bureaucracy of the University policies, the often unneeded consultation requests I had on daily basis on in-patients. And with my teaching duties of residents and students I was constantly in meetings and evaluating trainees; plus we had frequent internal squabbles among the staff…”
“Fortunately I am all done with all that myself here in the country, away from academia -though we get every so often rotating students from Bostin- and we are almost away too from lawyers, thank god!” said Cynthia.
“After a year in the big city, I was lured to come Upstate by a former senior colleague and mentor. Receptive to the idea, I left the City… but opened a ‘solo’ practice in the outskirts of Buffarin. He got me in the associate clinical staff with admitting privileges to the University Hospital. At least my practice became more interesting and challenging even if over time it has proven more dangerous and it may be leading me to the destruction of my career and professional life.”
“The same here in Mass; or in Florida, or elsewhere. The wolves of your Health Department’s OPC are the same bad wolves and predators everywhere and they constantly look out for easy victims, especially for solo practitioners like you. And doctors are the worse critics and enemies of doctors… and worst when they are with lawyers. And when you move, don’t ever go alone again, wherever you go!”
“I hope I am not too late to escape. I have two close friends, an orthopedic woman and her husband, a State Supreme Court judge and both are giving me advice about how to extricate myself from my current mess before the State’s OPC closes in on me. They probably have already a noose ready to strangle me…”
On the second day, in the greater Bostin, she had an interview with the woman recruiting officer of the large hospital containing several multi-specialty groups that had sent her the invitation to come and take a look. The position was still open. The lady took Dr. Phillips for a walking tour of the place and then to lunch in their own restaurant of classy, rusty decor, of dark ambience, attached to the main wing. In the afternoon, Nora was scheduled for three appointments with colleagues of her own child neurology specialty and with the chief of Neurology. From all four she left with a positive impression, but did not know if they would offer her the empty position or not. She would hear from the recruiting officer within the next two weeks.
Done by five, she went to the Bostin center where she had a hotel reservation not far from the Quince Market. She still had time for a good, restful walk in the Commons area. While she saw her horizon re-opening, she still felt tense inside after a full day when she was constantly on the spot, on guard, constantly watching herself in her words, her attire, looks and general attractive appearance, in her posture, moves and etiquette dealing with all those men -inspecting, analyzing her- professionals, possible future companions. She still felt tense and nervous inside as she strolled at a fast pace from her Hotel all the way to the Ritz at the other end and back on Bington street by the place of the Marathon Bombing of September, 2012, and then on Termit St to her hotel. She would head home to Buffarin at day break.
When Nora got back to her office by noon of the 3rd day, she still had thirty-plus days before she had in court the re-scheduled Hearing to defend her Motion for the Injunction. Three days after her return from Bostin she would fly to Jasonville for a visit-with-job-interview towards a possible move to The Sunny State, as she had just done in Mass. She had already contacted by e-mail in that State the Board of Medicine in Tallseat, with just enough time to process the validation