Supporters of Dr. Terry Bennett have launched a website on behalf of the 67-year-old New Hampshire doctor, who got into legal squabbles over his blunt advice to an obese patient.
Patients and friends jump to his defense with a cartoon (below), his bio and a statement which insists:
"Terry Bennett helps patients whether they have insurance or not; he helps patients whether they can afford his services or not! He makes house calls when needed. When you call his beeper 24/7 you speak with the Doctor! That’s why he has 10,000 active patients at his Rochester practice.
"Terry is a 'good-old-fashioned doctor' – he is a dinosaur in this age of 5-second medicine. He cares about his patients, he cares about making them all well. He truly believes in the words of the great Greek Hippocrates – 'First, do no harm!' Dr. Bennett is brash, outspoken and most of all a truth-teller! And that is how he got in trouble!"
Dr. Bennett, as I noted here previously, got into trouble because he didn't mince words and rather pointedly warned his patient of the impending doom resulting from being obese.
What's the big deal?
Well, reportedly, Dr. Bennett then told his female patient that both her and her husband's obesity could be life-threatening. He also warned her that obese women generally live longer than obese men and predicted that she'd outlive her spouse. According to to Portsmouth Herald and CNN, he also told her that if her husband died, no one would want her except maybe a black man. (Dr. Bennett denies the latter alleged comment.)
He also offered weight loss advice to stay away from bread, pasta, cereals, rice, potatoes and alcohol and sugars.
Apparently riled up at his brashness, the obese female -- who saw him several times -- filed a complaint with the New Hampshire Board of Medicine even though the doctor sent her an apology letter. Then, the matter went to the Attorney General's Administrative Prosecution Unit, which proposed that Dr. Bennett take a medical evaluation course and admit he made a mistake. He's now under investigation from the Medicine Review Committee.
Meanwhile, this week, the Portsmouth Herald reported that Dr. Bennett was contacted by an attorney from the New Hampshire Malpractice Joint Underwriters Association, which is planning to udnertake the cost of his defense.
Dr. Bennett -- who has a medical degree from Harvard University and a master's from the Harvard School of Public Health -- told the Rochester News that this is the second complaint filed against him during his years in practice as a physician and that "the previous case was dismissed without merit after the patient who filed it was 'deemed incompetent' following a stroke."
Granted, Dr. Bennett was crass in predicting that if her husband died, the woman would have trouble being alone and getting a man. If he did make the black man comment, that was in really bad taste but certainly not cause for a lawsuit.
Dr. Bennett now insists, "they picked the wrong guy because I am not going away; I will not shut up."
Supporters of Dr. Terry Bennett have launched a website on behalf of the 67-year-old New Hampshire doctor, who got into legal squabbles over his blunt advice to an obese patient.
Patients and friends jump to his defense with a cartoon (below), his bio and a statement which insists:
Dr. Bennett, as I noted here previously, got into trouble because he didn't mince words and rather pointedly warned his patient of the impending doom resulting from being obese.
What's the big deal?
Well, reportedly, Dr. Bennett then told his female patient that both her and her husband's obesity could be life-threatening. He also warned her that obese women generally live longer than obese men and predicted that she'd outlive her spouse. According to to Portsmouth Herald and CNN, he also told her that if her husband died, no one would want her except maybe a black man. (Dr. Bennett denies the latter alleged comment.)
He also offered weight loss advice to stay away from bread, pasta, cereals, rice, potatoes and alcohol and sugars.
Apparently riled up at his brashness, the obese female -- who saw him several times -- filed a complaint with the New Hampshire Board of Medicine even though the doctor sent her an apology letter. Then, the matter went to the Attorney General's Administrative Prosecution Unit, which proposed that Dr. Bennett take a medical evaluation course and admit he made a mistake. He's now under investigation from the Medicine Review Committee.
Meanwhile, this week, the Portsmouth Herald reported that Dr. Bennett was contacted by an attorney from the New Hampshire Malpractice Joint Underwriters Association, which is planning to udnertake the cost of his defense.
Dr. Bennett -- who has a medical degree from Harvard University and a master's from the Harvard School of Public Health -- told the Rochester News that this is the second complaint filed against him during his years in practice as a physician and that "the previous case was dismissed without merit after the patient who filed it was 'deemed incompetent' following a stroke."
Granted, Dr. Bennett was crass in predicting that if her husband died, the woman would have trouble being alone and getting a man. If he did make the black man comment, that was in really bad taste but certainly not cause for a lawsuit.
Dr. Bennett now insists, "they picked the wrong guy because I am not going away; I will not shut up."