Is it Sunday?? Awesome. Time for another Idiot Doctor Story Revisited . . .
On Long Island, New York a physician waging war in the midst of a three-year divorce announced to the media in 2009 that he was demanding his estranged wife return the kidney he’d been good enough to donate to her years before.
Doctor Richard Batista, a surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, told reporters that he decided to go public with his demand for “kidney compensation” because he had grown frustrated with the negotiations with his estranged wife.
Yes, you read that right - "Kidney Compensation."
According to Batista, he was the kidney donor for Dawnell Batista, now age 44, in the summer of 2001. The doctor believes his wife started a long-term affair about two years after her kidney transplant. She subsequently filed for divorce in July 2005.
How’s that for appreciation?
Batista, age 49, who specializes in vascular procedures, stated he had no regrets about donating the kidney to his wife - only that his marriage fell apart. The couple had been married for 11 years and lived in a Massapequa estate. They met while he was working at a hospital and she was training to be a nurse.
Dawnell "the Kidney-Keeper" Bautista
The case was apparently the first of its kind in New York state. Julia Rivera of the New York Organ Donor Network said she never heard of anything similar.
“This is extraordinary,” the spokeswoman said.
As of this writing, Dawnell still has her husband’s kidney. We suspect she did return his heart.
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Our Observations:
Ms. Rivera thinks this case was ‘extraordinary?’
We suspect she doesn’t know enough physicians. We sent her a copy of our book, “America’s Dumbest Doctors,” because, well, we’re here to help.
Here’s a bit more on the case: