Before leaving last night I looked at today's schedule. One of the 
new patient's listed was familiar, and I searched my charts. It was a 
lady I'd fired 7 years ago for various reasons. She'd been referred back
 to me by her new internist, Dr. McCheese, who likely hadn't been told 
of my history with her. Mary had missed the problem.
So
 I talked to Mary. She'd forgotten I'd fired the lady, and said she 
hadn't spoken to the patient. Dr. McCheese's office had scheduled the 
appointment.
Dr. McCheese doesn't normally refer to me,
 so I really didn't care about making him angry. I called his office 
and reached the lady who'd made the referral.
Dr. Grumpy: "I'm not going to accept this case. She can't come back here."
Office
 Lady: "Well that's just freakin' GREAT! I mean, we don't refer to you 
anyway, and you were our last hope. We already tried all 5 good 
neurologists in town, but none of them wanted to touch her either. So we
 thought we'd send her to you."
You
 have no idea how special I felt. There are about 80 neurologists in my 
town, not including the one who died on Monday, and I didn't know that 
only 5 of them were competent.
Dr. Grumpy: "Sorry. I'm not taking her."
Office Lady: "So now what am I supposed to do?"
I thought about telling her to go stuff herself, but an even better idea came to mind.
Dr. Grumpy: "Why don't you refer her to Dr. Justdiedmonday?"
Office Lady: "I hadn't thought of that. He isn't on our list either. Do you think he'd see her?"
Dr. Grumpy. "It can't hurt to ask. I heard he has some schedule openings this week."
Office Lady: "Thank you! I appreciate your help. I'll call his office right now."
Dr. Grumpy: "Have a good night."