So Much For Returning a Favor

I've always enjoyed going out of my way for folks, and doing favors. Truth is, I get uncomfortable when others do or give to me. I inherited that from my Dad...

When I give charity, I see it as its own reward, and I've been blessed to be able to give more charity in a typical year than my parents gave over 10. And I rarely expect anything in return. Except once in awhile...

Beginning in '06, I started making a yearly contribution to a med school division. I agreed to pay for all of the docs, residents, and fellows to attend a national conference on gastric disease.  A particular type has affected my family, and I really think a cure for some of the chronic conditions is not far off. I figured that making it easy for local academic docs to hear the latest developments would be a cool thing.

The tuition bill started out being about $5K to send them to the weekend meeting, but as the meeting moved from South Florida to Orlando, the bill went up -- last year it was close to $10K. I got a little annoyed when I learned that one doc took advantage of my offer -- even though she and her doctor husband earned a lot more than I did. Whatever...

Well, one of the treating docs is a nice enough young woman. A few years ago, when D1 worked at the hospital, I ran into her, and she gushed on and on about how much she appreciated my yearly gift -- it meant SO much to her and the budding docs she taught. I downplayed things -- probably just cheerleaded --and that was it.

This nice young woman turned out to be a treating doc for one of our young clients. This week I reached out to her -- could she cut through the absurd red tape, and give us 20 minutes to meet us off the record about the patient. She had been sent authorizations, and we really just needed a few questions answered about the little girl's future needs.

Put starkly -- I gave her division over $50K -- could I ask her for a quick 20 minutes?  She ignored my email request for  most of the week, and then responded last night. No -- she was just too busy, given understaffing, busy patient load, etc...

Now, either she truly does NOT have the 20 minutes (maybe she can do procedures while sitting on a toilet), or she simply chooses to try to avoid any legal/medical matters.

Either way, she's going to get subpoenaed to come to Court -- and that will take up hours and hours.  In other words, things will go based upon what she MUST do, as opposed to returning a favor to a donor.

Wifey's been pointing out to me for years that I'm often a sap. All through the years, as our law firm soared, we ALWAYS picked up dinner tabs -- for family, friends, acquaintances, etc...I can count on one hand the amount of time anyone has recriprocated.  I NEVER asked for a check and had a waiter tell me someone had taken care of it -- a frequent move Paul and I pulled numerous times.  And that's ok.

Well, the annual paying of the seminar ended -- not because of this, but because of a far worse breach -- one of the related docs completely ignored D1 when she came home from Mexico sick as a dog.  To this day we can't figure out what happened -- so we gave up trying. D1 switched doctors, and I stopped telling people to go see Maria, after I referred her no fewer than 20 patients, including one young man whose family became a major donor to Maria's program.  Oh well...

If you constantly keep score with people, you're bound to become bitter, and though I've become crochety, I hope to avoid becoming bitter.

Then again, I guess I'm thankful that if anyone asks me for 20 minutes of my time, to give free legal advise, I have the ability to give it. I'm never, ever, THAT busy.