Dr. Harry Thompson--I move we accept the report of the Censors with the recommendation that they be empowered to consult an attorney.
Motion was seconded by Dr. Beaton, and carried.
Dr. Bernstein--Has there not been some complaint come in to the Society since he has been out of it?
Dr. Manning--Was there not one before this N_____ case?
Report for the Board of Censors, continued by Dr. Hastings--"we received a written complaint from a patient about the size of the fee charged her for the care of her daughter by Dr. Claude Davis. As you know, he has had a cerebral accident. I asked Dr. Wharton and Dr. Davis' secretary to submit to me a list of the office calls and treatments and the amount of the charges and payments on this account. They were not too cooperative in that they only referred me to their accountants, with whom they have since had some difficulty. He sent me their ledger sheets and the Board reviewed them, enumerating day by day charges in this particular instance. The gist of the complaint was that the mother of this asthmatic young lady alleges that when the youngster went to see Dr. Davis he estimated that her bill would not exceed $300.00, and she says that she has paid him a lot more than that amount. We went over the ledger accounts and they list payments of $312.50, and she feels that she has paid as much or more than her daughter contracted to pay Dr. Davis, and therefore the balance, for which she has been receiving bills, should be dropped. As I say, we can't go to Claude and talk about it, and our contacts have only been with Dr. Wharton and the accountant. We have written the complainant that he is ill and we have been unable to contact him, but we will do so and then we will give her an opinion as to whether we feel an injustice has been done here or not.
Third, we had an application for permanent membership in the Society from Dr. Jacob A. Kohn. As you know, he is the midst of a law suit in which he and St. Mary's Hospital are defendants. Following a tonsillectomy which was performed at St. Mary's, the patient dies, and the hospital and Dr. Kohn are being jointly sued. There has been a lot of conversation about whose liability it was, and your committee has not had an opportunity to completely investigate it. We do have this information, which Dr. Rudolph may not know; this particular operation was a tonsillectomy performed by Dr. Kohn and the patient died under anaesthesia--apparently through some misunderstanding instead of novacaine [ Novocaine ] or procain [ Procain ] being utilized, pontocaine [ Pontocaine ] was used. Dr. Earl Brown was monitoring that operation. We, of course, can't discuss it with Earl. His wife felt that part of the reason he had a coronary was because he was upset about this case, and he discussed it with Dr. Lesemann before he died, and one of our committee discussed it with him. Earl was entirely in favor of exonerating Dr. Kohn because he had said Dr. Kohn had done everything possible and it was apparently no fault of his that this happened. Earl told Fred that this should not be used against Dr. Kohn. I have not discussed this with Roy; I have with Hugh, and he and I both feel that now that Dr. Kohn has applied for permanent membership, and that now that he is involved in this law suit, and that now that his term membership has expired and he has not been a member since the 13th of January, our committee should, with Roy's permission, recommend that he be accepted for permanent membership in this Society."
Discussion:
Dr. Rudolph--I do not know this new material, but I have not heard Fred discuss it at all. The fellow did not die during the operation, but some hours later.
Dr. Hastings--Dr. Kohn is not a member of the Society because his membership has lapsed. Either he should be accepted for permanent membership or his
