A Wrecked Church!

[ILG]

I have been reading the book Confessions of Surgeon by Paul A. Ruggieri. Last night I read a part where he talks about being sued. Early in his career, he rushed to the aid of an aging surgeon whose license should have been pulled as he kept messing up. However, the hospital was afraid to touch the old surgeon. He helped this surgeon who had made a huge mistake and left the room. The old surgeon then accidentally left a sponge in the person. The person sued. The old physician pretty much threw Dr. Ruggieri to the wolves in an attempt to keep his job. Here is what Dr. Ruggieri writes about having gone through it:

"The main truth is often irrelevant. The final truth ends up originating from an economic decision.....this (old) surgeon created his own problems. I don't blame the woman for suing....."

"Any patient, at any time, regardless of the quality of care given, can file a frivolous malpractice lawsuit, oblivious to the implications to those involved."

"As a result of two opening sentences in a legal letter, I was initiated into a secret club rarely spoken about. It is a club that brands you with a scarlet letter. A letter you spend the rest of your life trying to hide. I soon would journey through a process that swallows you whole, takes a few bites, and then regurgitates you. In the end, it leaves you alone to clean the emotional vomit off your white coat before getting back into the operating room. Living through a malpractice lawsuit forever changed me....the day I received that letter was the day I lost my professional virginity. I was young. It hurt like hell. I wanted it to be over quickly, and I would never speak about it again.....as the lawsuit unfolded, the very foundation of my professional altruism was shaken."

"As a defendant, I was embarrassed, shocked, %&$@ off, humbled and confused. I was embarrassed because the process made me feel as if I was part of some unspeakable evil. It made me feel as if I had purposely planned to cause harm, schemed to be negligent. I was shocked because nothing had prepared me to deal with the emotional baggage with being named in a lawsuit."

"As the suit ran it's slow course, it felt like I was emotionally bleeding every time I had to devote energy to defending myself. During the long, uninvolved gaps, I did my best to scab over the wounds until the next meeting or deposition. Then, the bleeding would start all over again.

"Three years later....the case was dropped. Yes, that was good news, but it was not over for me. For the next ten years, this black mark is on my record, even though I've been dropped from the case. Every time I apply for hospital privileges or renew my license, I have to explain it."

Wow. Could I ever relate to that! I had a hard time sleeping last night. My husband and I were never vindicated aside from the fact that the lawsuit(s) were finally dropped. Every friend that the previous pastor had ever had believed we were evil church destroyers. Many of the church members believed that. Far and wide, anywhere I go, if I were to walk into a UPC church and people found out who I was, there would be whispers and gossip. We had moved here from another state and no one here knew us when we took the church. We were both first generation Pentecostals.

When my husband decided to disafilliate the church, we had pretty much lost all confidence and hope in the district superintendent and presbyter. Of course, the presbyter had to show up for the disaffiliation meeting. He basically told the people that if there was a vote to disafilliate that we would take any money left. The district was there to protect them from that, from evil people like us! HA! Hogwash.