“I can’t imagine practicing medicine without a lawyer.”

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Health care providers from across the country share the moments that they realized having lawyers in their clinics was critical to providing care.

Emergency department physician Dr. Jennifer Newberry says that while doctors are focused on medical treatment, their patients are often much more preoccupied with their urgent social needs. When a patient wouldn’t stay at the hospital for critical treatment, she knew a lawyer could have helped.

 

After admitting a child to the pediatric ICU in Boston, Dr. Megan Sandel said it was a lawyer who filled the “healthy housing prescription.”

 

A young girl at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta couldn’t get a heart transplant without stable guardianship in place. When a lawyer at the hospital helped her grandparents get custody, it made Dr. Bob Pettignano realize, “we can’t go back.”

 

During residency, Dr. Alicia Turlington had a patient who skipped a critical surgery. When she asked why, the patient flagged several problems that would require the help of a lawyer to fix.