In this episode, we share the story of a plastic surgeon who blindly entered into an employment arrangement with a practice notorious for filing lawsuits against physicians who tried to leave. We explore key elements of physician employment agreements, including non-compete clauses, termination notices, bonuses, tail insurance, and financial considerations.
Listen to the full episode using the player below, or by visiting one of the links below. Below is the episode’s transcript which has been edited for readability. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, email us at info@byrdadatto.com.
Transcript
Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. Legal issues simplified through real client stories and real world experiences, creating simplicity in 3, 2, 1.
Brad: Welcome back to another episode of the Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto with my co-host Michael Byrd.
Michael: Thanks Brad. As a business and healthcare law firm, we meet a lot of interesting people and learn their amazing stories. This season’s theme is hard conversations. We’ll take real client stories, we’ll scrub their names to protect confidentiality, and build these stories around confronting and having these hard conversations. Now, Brad, they don’t all have great outcomes, but there are plenty of teachable moments.
Brad: Alright, Michael, what random topic do you want to throw at me today?
Michael: Have you ever been to the rodeo?
Brad: Many times, but sadly, I don’t think anyone recently.
Michael: Have you ever participated in a rodeo?
Brad: Meaning, did I [00:01:00] jump in there and ride a bull or something like that, Michael?
Michael: Yeah.
Brad: Uh, nope. However, fun fact, my roommate in college, his dad went to New Mexico State on a bull riding scholarship.
Michael: Oh.
Brad: And rode professionally. And so when he would come visit us in college, we would go to these rodeos and be in the back with all the riders that he knew through the years he rode.
Michael: Very nice. Well then that begs the follow up question. Have you ever ridden a real life bull or at least a mechanical bull?
Brad: So never a real life bull. I’ve ridden a mechanical bull, like anyone familiar with Fort Worth, Texas. They have Billy Bobs and they had a mechanical bull there. My favorite story of all time, and I’ll bridge it, was for my 40th birthday, there was a bar in Bourbon Street in New Orleans that had…
Michael: Wait, there’s a bar in Bourbon Street.
Brad: Yeah, I know. Again, stick with me on this one.
Michael: Yeah. Okay.
Brad: It’s mostly believable and in this bar it was themed for whatever reason, it had a cowboy theme and they had a mechanical bull in [00:02:00] there. And me and my friends were standing there and this girl gets up there and she’s riding it and my buddy looks over me and say, this looks pretty easy because the mechanical bull wasn’t really throwing her or anything like that. So he gets up there and we may have tipped the guy to make sure it did not go well for him, and he was suited up and kept getting thrown off the bull, and he hopped back up and thrown off the bull. He had a lot of libations in him too, so he thought he could do it, but it did not work for him. How about you?
Michael: That’s fantastic. Well, I’ve ridden a mechanical bull several times. No great stories from it. You won’t be surprised by this. My wife, Stephanie, several years ago, actually won a trophy at a mechanical bull competition.
Brad: Yeah. She’s not competitive at all.
Michael: Yeah, and she also tried bull fighting in Spain and that did not work out as well.
Brad: Wait, you can’t just say that your wife tried bull fighting in Spain and did not work out well. Did she die?
Michael: She did not die, Brad.
Brad: Okay.
Michael: This was during her college years, so we didn’t even know each [00:03:00] other yet.
Brad: Okay. So for the audience, she’s still alive, right?
Michael: And by the way, when I found out this story, which was 20 years later, it was also when her parents found out the story. She was terrified to tell them she was in college doing the summer in Spain thing and they had I think it was a junior bull or baby bull, which was only like 800 pounds.
Brad: Oh, sure. Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. And so, my understanding is it’s the full red cape and they were looking for volunteers in the crowd to give it a go. She thought that she would be a natural since she was born in Spain. And I think that a moment later she was lying on her back, looking up at the sky after. The bull won and she had to be helped off, but she survived to tell the story.
Brad: There you go. Well, Michael, why are you deposing me today on this rodeo talk?
Michael: I read a fascinating article about bull riding and wanted to make sure you had the background to be able to follow me [00:04:00] for those of you who were born in Texas, Brad, this actually comes naturally, so I just wanted to make sure you could stick with me.
Brad: Alright. First, I’ve lived in Texas nearly half my life, and for five of those years I lived in, sorry, Fort Worth, Texas, where actually for those who don’t know, that’s where the west begins. I spent many of nights in Cowtown in Fort Worth, but like mini Texans, apparently you’re either born here and you’re a Texan or you’re not. And this is a funny conversation, it just happened like two weeks ago. My son was born in New Orleans when he was a year we moved to Dallas, Texas. My daughter was born here in Texas and she keeps telling him, well, you’re not from Texas.
Michael: Yeah.
Brad: No. He’s 18 and spent his entire life here basically.
Michael: Well, they teach you New Orleans people to say Texas or whatever you say and us from Texas, we don’t have accents.
Brad: You don’t have accents at all?
Michael: Not at all.
Brad: Not at all.
Michael: Okay. Well let me talk about this article. This article was talking about the dangers of bull riding. The eight seconds that a cowboy is riding can be [00:05:00] exhilarating, but there was so much danger in that lifestyle. Let me pause. That’s the goal in a bull ride is to last the eight seconds without getting knocked off.
Brad: Yeah. I’m assuming without reading the article, most people think it’s dangerous to get on top of a 2000 pound angry animal.
Michael: Fair point.
Brad: Yeah.
Michael: But the article really got interesting cause they started talking about the behind the scenes players in a bull riding competition. It was fascinating. The person interviewed in the article was a rodeo clown back in the sixties and seventies.
Brad: Riley, did you notice that he had some air quotes? Are you hiding something, Michael? Are you, were you that rodeo clown in the sixties?
Michael: Well, you hit that softball straight out of the park, Brad. I should have known better by referencing something that was really old.
Brad: Yes. Like yourself.
Michael: Yes.
Brad: Well, let’s get back on track. What was the article saying about this mystery rodeo clown that might be sitting across me?
Michael: Yeah. [00:06:00] Well, the role of a rodeo clown back in the day was twofold. Both to entertain the crowd and fight the bull to keep the bull from trampling the bull rider that had been bucked off.
Brad: Yeah, and that’s kind of the picture I have of this roll a rodeo clown. So what do they do now in modern times besides act like lawyers on podcasts?
Michael: Well, much like everything, I guess in bull riding, it’s the era of specialization now, because actually it is a divided job now.
Brad: Okay
Michael: Now you have bullfighters.
Brad: Oh.
Michael: And their job is the part to fight the bull to protect the bull rider.
Brad: Alright.
Michael: And then you have the rodeo clown and their job is to entertain the crowd. The bullfighters and the rodeo clowns often work as teams and as you might suspect, there’s a lot more that goes into it. And if I happen to have any rodeo clowns or bullfighters listening right now, they’re probably wanting to punch through the screen because I didn’t do it justice.
Brad: We do have a very large following of Rodeo clowns, apparently. But are [00:07:00] you saying there’s more than just running faster than the bull?
Michael: Well, I have to admit, Brad, that’s kind of what I picture is you, you know, putting the clown costume on and sprint, but the article made it seem like there were actually some nuances and real danger with these jobs. The rodeo clown recounted numerous broken bones and even being flipped 45 feet in the air at one point by an angry bull. And so I’m left wondering like, why do they do this if it’s that dangerous? And they’re not even the star of the show and the rodeo clown actually spoke to that. He said that, you know, that they would feed off the energy from entertaining the crowd, and apparently they got massive street cred from the bull riders because they were so grateful that they would save their bacon, so to speak.
Brad: Gotcha. Well, makes sense. Well, this sounds like a really rough way to make a living, but I know it’s entertaining. I’ve seen it before, but [00:08:00] Michael, let’s jump into today’s story.
Michael: Our client in today’s story is a board certified plastic surgeon who had started building a vibrant practice and we will call him Dr. Tuff.
Brad: Michael, did you just make this name up because he is like a strong person or is he like a mixed martial art specialist?
Michael: Well, randomly he is pretty tough, but I’m trying to be a little more creative with my names, Brad.
Brad: Okay.
Michael: His name is inspired by Tuff Hedeman, one of the most famous bull riders of all time.
Brad: Okay, so I’m seeing a little stretch here, but I’m surprised you actually didn’t go with the American rodeo legend, Lane Frost. They actually made a movie about him called Eight Seconds, which, you know, everyone knows him, the star of it was Luke Perry. But you may be creative in different ways, but you’re certainly not subtle by connecting it to rodeo talk today.
Michael: Oh, we’re going straight into rodeo talk today, Brad.
Brad: Okay.
Michael: So you aren’t going to be able to avoid it. In fact, let me introduce our next character.
Brad: Okay.
Michael: So [00:09:00] first, Dr. Tuff was an employed physician and the senior plastic surgeon in this practice and the owner of the practice is called Dr. Bodacious.
Brad: Well, I know what the vocabulary word bodacious means, but where’s this coming from? Go ahead and explain Dr. Bodacious.
Michael: Well, continuing the theme, Brad, bodacious is the name of a bull.
Brad: Oh.
Michael: It became infamously known as the world’s most dangerous bull throughout the sport of bull riding because of his reputation for injuring riders.
Brad: Okay, so let me get this right. Dr. Tuff is our client who worked with you and is named after this famous bull rider while Dr. Bodacious is the employer physician. He’s the employer and the world’s most dangerous bull. So clearly, again, you’re the rodeo clown in the story.
Michael: Very funny, Brad. I like to picture myself more as the bull fighter in the story.
Brad: Yeah. Well, given how old you are, I think you’re more [00:10:00] old school and since this article you referenced, it definitely makes you a clown.
Michael: You mean a rodeo clown, right?
Brad: Sure. Michael, you are an, air quote, rodeo clown, not just a clown.
Michael: Okay, well, I feel like I just got lawyered there, so we’re going to move on. Dr. Tuff unfortunately made the mistake outta school to not have someone review his contract.
Brad: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. He signed the contract figuring it was not negotiable.
Brad: Dang. Well, we’ve done a lot of podcasts on physician employment agreements, but I think you know, Dr. Gary Tuma, shared a really great story podcast we did a couple years ago about basically signing blindly. His story about being told you can’t negotiate and the ramifications he personally went through because of that.
Michael: Yeah, and the problem was that Dr. Bodacious had a terrible reputation in how he worked with others including the long line of plastic surgeons that he had hired in the past.
Brad: Oh no.
Michael: The [00:11:00] employment agreement, you probably won’t be surprised to hear this, Brad, was extremely overbearing.
Brad: So let me just start guessing without even having seen it. I’m sure there was a very strong non-compete.
Michael: Well, of course and this was an important element for sure. Dr. Tuff worked in Texas and so, you know, maybe Brad, tell the audience a little bit about how non-competes work in Texas.
Brad: Yeah and you know, a lot of times people will hear in restricted covenants for the first times. They might be thinking, well, they’re enforceable, whatever it is, but let’s just concentrate for this podcast on physician employment agreements. And, you know, you might have non-solicitation of patients or employees or non-disclosure clauses, but most people really are focusing on the non-compete of these type of restrictive covenants. And generally speaking, for a non-compete, for it to be enforceable, it has to be in most states, reasonable on trades. So courts look at time and geographic scope and what is that prohibited activity that’s actually detailed in that agreement. So you said the story’s in Texas, so let’s focus on Texas. And Texas [00:12:00] is one of these states that it’s allowed, but for physicians, for it to be otherwise enforceable it has to be part of a contract. In addition to that, Texas has a whole statute written and it has a whole bunch of things that have to be in there for it to be enforceable against a physician. And one of those elements is including a buyout in that non-compete.
Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Well, the non-compete was onerous in the sense that it also, it connected to each of the offices, you mentioned the geographic scope a minute ago. Well, Dr. Bodacious had three offices and the non-compete connected a radius from each office. And so it effectively would’ve made Dr. Tuff have to leave town where he had built this vibrant practice that we started this story with, but believe it or not, the non-compete was only a variable to this story and not the main issue.
Brad: Oh man, this does feel like a rough ride. So what was the main issue?
Michael: Okay, well, I’m going to [00:13:00] answer in a moment.
Brad: Alright.
Michael: Stay with me.
Brad: Alright.
Michael: I want to touch on some of the other onerous issues in the contract. It was, you know, gloriously strong, Brad.
Brad: Gloriously?
Michael: Yes. Yes. I mean, you just gotta, you almost have to admire.
Brad: Okay.
Michael: Yes. So, the first of all, the contract locked in Dr. Tuff from a compensation perspective. And, Dr. Bodacious would not negotiate. Dr. Bodacious also would not allow Dr. Tuff to become an owner of the practice. He wouldn’t allow him to become an owner in the ancillaries, which was a surgery center and a medical spa. And Dr. Tuff sent a ton of patients to the medical spa, but he didn’t get any credit for this, nor, as I just mentioned, did he have a chance to become an owner.
Brad: Yeah, normally I might cover this in the second half of the podcast, but Michael, I think just jump again real quick to some [00:14:00] context here for our audience. You know, we did an entire season focusing on different specialties and we did cover many aspects of a plastic surgeon’s practice. And for those that don’t know a plastic surgeon’s practice, there might be three different revenue models that they may be able to participate in. So obviously as a plastic surgeon, they’ll be professional fees as that surgeon that they might be able to receive, but where you were just kind of referencing is there’s a lot of opportunities for plastic surgeons on the ownership side, and that mostly includes these ancillary revenues, typically from either, sometimes they call ’em non-invasive service or aesthetic services where you typically see in a med spa or if you have an ownership in a surgical suite, an ambulatory surgery center. And as owners, you then get distributions based off that. So, you know, as a young plastic surgeon or as any plastic surgeon, we often talk about the wins you get as an owner. So your statement earlier that he couldn’t become an owner, that’s a pretty bad [00:15:00] hit for him.
Michael: Yeah. Not much incentive was sitting there. And so let’s continue with this gloriously awful contract. It also made it difficult for him to leave which might shock you. It required a 120 day notice of termination. If he did leave, he was responsible to purchase the tail policy and finally Dr. Tuff would lose his bonus if he was terminated.
Brad: Alright. Well, I think there’s a lot of issues that we can cover in this on the other side of the commercial, but first I want to circle back. This was some horrible contract provisions here, and yet you said, if I remember correctly, that was not the main issue.
Michael: Yeah, the main issue was that Dr. Bodacious was a horrible person to work with. He was not a nice person and wanted everyone to be afraid of him. It made the practice, bodacious plastic surgery, a [00:16:00] horrible place to work.
Brad: Yeah. This is shocking because I have met Dr. Tuff in real life and he is one of the nicest persons I’ve ever met.
Michael: I know, I know. And all the staff actually stayed because Dr. Tuff was a calming figure in the office, but, Dr. Tuff had gotten to the point where he had to get out.
Brad: I have a feeling this is where we have a hard conversation. So did Dr. Tuff do it?
Michael: Dun dun dun. Yes, Brad, he put his big boy chaps on and told Dr. Bodacious that he was leaving.
Brad: Yeah. I have to imagine that this was a hard conversation. Did the conversation last longer than eight seconds?
Michael: Yeah, well, believe it or not, this is actually the first time we worked with Dr. Tuff for many years now and this is really how he and I got connected because he had fear of what this conversation would look like. Our initial engagement was all [00:17:00] built around this conversation.
Brad: Wow.
Michael: Reviewing the contract again, just, you know, having a strategy and Dr. Bodacious for some context had sued every single doctor that had left him before and so we really talked through, you know, kind just understanding that emotions were going to run particularly hot and that Dr. Tuff had to be the calming force in this conversation and the conversations that would follow. And so, kind of using this rodeo analogy, him telling Dr. Bodacious he was leaving would be diving the spurs into the bull and starting the eight second ride.
Brad: Well, I’m going to follow your analogy here, except in this case it would be 120 day notice of termination so Dr. Tuff would need to ride it out for five months and worse, you know, once he left and you know, quote on quote landed on his feet, he had this [00:18:00] owner’s non-compete that would, he’d either need to move, as you said, or cause we talked about Texas, buy out of it.
Michael: Exactly. Let’s pause here for a commercial break. On the other side, let’s talk about the legal issues today and find out if Dr. Tuff was bucked off of Bodacious or made it the eight seconds.
Access+: Many business owners use legal counsel as a last resort rather than as a proactive tool that can further their success. Why? For most, it’s the fear of unknown legal costs. ByrdAdatto’s Access+ program makes it possible for you to get the ongoing legal assistance you need for one predictable monthly fee. That gives you unlimited phone and email access to the legal team so you can receive feedback on legal concerns as they arise. Access+, a smarter, simpler way to access legal services. Find out more. Visit ByrdAdatto.com today.
Brad: Welcome back to Legal 123s with ByrdAdatto. I’m your host, Brad Adatto with my co-host Michael Texas Byrd. [00:19:00] Now Michael, this season, our theme is hard conversations and Dr. Tuff was confronted with a really hard conversation cause he was dealing with a mean, nasty angry bull or his employer named Dr. Bodacious. And that he let him know he was leaving the practice.
Michael: Yeah. And kind of a quick recap. Dr. Tuff, you know, came outta school, signed an employment agreement, made the common mistake of just signing, and so you took a pretty tremendous amount of risk when Dr. Tuff did that and got into realize quickly that he had signed off on a lot of risk because he realized that Dr. Bodacious was not a kind human or an easy person to work with. And Dr. Tuff, you know, kind of lived and built his practice in that environment for several years until he had enough and had to get out. And so, you know, we came into the picture, I [00:20:00] guess as the bullfighters, what I’d like to characterize myself, to help him strategize to get out and have that conversation. And that’s kind of where we left off in the story, but let’s step back a minute and kind of talk about some of the legal issues that, you know, are raised by this story.
Brad: I just want to pause for a second and make sure the audience understood. You’re saying that you shepherd him out of the bull ring and stood there and stared at Dr. Bodacious by yourself.
Michael: Figuratively.
Brad: Alright. Well, Michael, there’s a ton of issues that we’re implementing this story that, you know, with Dr. Tuff leaving the practice. So let’s kind of unpack a few of ’em for our audience that you threw out early on, but let’s first talk about the 120 day notice period. That’s obviously longer than any eight seconds we’ve ever heard of. So what’s going on with that? Is that normal?
Michael: Yeah, that’s a great question. Let’s kind of start with what we see in the market with physician contracts.
Brad: Yeah, that’s a good idea. [00:21:00]
Michael: And so you typically do see a little bit longer than a normal employment. You see the 60 to 90 day notice periods and so it would be easy just to stop there and say, oh, well market 60 to 90 days. What’s 120? I mean, you know, or what’s 60 versus 90? The thing I like to talk to our clients about when either they’re drafting these or on Dr. Tuff’s side of the equation, going to sign these, is that 90 days is a really long time to work with someone when you’re breaking up.
Brad: Oh yeah.
Michael: And so while there are some great business reasons that you want to have that 90 days. It gives, if you’re on the employee side, it gives you runway to figure out what’s next. And if you’re on the employer side, it also gives you runway to find a replacement for your practice. And oftentimes that wins the day. Like that’s why the market is 60 to 90 days.
Brad: Yeah. [00:22:00]
Michael: Yet, you just want to make sure they’re prepared and understand that that’s a really miserable time period even when it goes great.
Brad: Yeah.
Michael: Well, Brad, let’s kind of talk a little bit about the issues that go kind of with the bonuses. We mentioned that he would lose his bonus when he left the practice and talk about those issues.
Brad: Yeah, and I’ll take an even bigger step back here for a lot of people, you know, a lot of times you might hear about, there’s a lot of laws out there that has to do with compensation. And, you know, when you’re being paid a salary and you’re being paid hourly, when you’re working for someone, they have to pay you by law, by state law for the services that you provided. So that’s the first thing to understand. But then it gets really sticky after that, meaning that how do you deal with bonuses and incentive comp? And that actually is not state. Generally speaking, many states don’t really address that on [00:23:00] point. And so a lot of times you have to go to the actual contract. So we have state law that says, I gotta pay you all the way up to the date in which you work with me, but on your bonuses on your incentive comp, that’s really generally contract dependent. And a lot of times you’ll see in some contracts where it’s like, okay, well I’ll pay you for our 12 month period, but I’m gonna pay you 90 days after the end of the year. Well, it’s the best way to kind of describe it is some golden handcuffs cause we quote, have to close out the year, but I won’t pay you that big money later on. So that’s another thing you start seeing in contracts where it’s a way of really keeping people longer just because they wanted to get their bonus. And then finally something that’s not often addressed in an employee, especially a physician employee contract is what happens to all those accounts receivables. Maybe in a plastic surgery practice, there are not that many, but for plastic surgeons that that might be the case, but in most surgeons, their AR might be 90 to 180 days [00:24:00] out, and so they never even got paid on that. So when they leave who gets that? Does the practice get all of it, collect it all, or is there a runway in which they can participate? So all those are big factors that should be discussed. And I’m assuming that’s one of the reasons why in this case, where Dr. Tuff had to hang out longer because the only way he could get that money is by meeting the calendar dates of being paid out. So those golden handcuffs kind of kept them there, but, so Michael, let’s shift off comp talk and maybe talk about something you kind of casually mentioned, but you and I know is a big deal. You said something about that tail insurance you mentioned, that he left, contractually, Dr. Tuff was obligated to deal with it.
Michael: Yeah, this is a tricky conversation because it’s super boring.
Brad: Well, I’m glad I asked you to talk about that.
Michael: Yeah. So, you know, very generally, a doctor has to carry malpractice insurance.
Brad: Yes.
Michael: People probably appreciate that. Doctors definitely know that. There’s two different types of [00:25:00] policies that are out in the market in most states, and one’s called an occurrence policy and one’s called a claims made policy. And it just depends on the market as to what you can get. An occurrence is more souped up coverage than a claim’s made so that usually is beneficial. And what occurrence policy means is that if you had insurance coverage on the day that the alleged malpractice happened, then you’re covered for life if you ever get sued for it. So in a scenario where a doctor, you know, operates, has insurance and then a month later leaves to go to another practice, they’re still covered. A claims made has two steps to be eligible for coverage, you have to be insured on the date of the surgery, just like occurrence and you still have to have a policy the date a claim is made or a suit’s filed. And so that creates a problem when a doctor leaves because they have a [00:26:00] history of all these cases they did, yet they’re leaving the practice. And they would not be covered unless they buy something called a tail policy.
Brad: Right.
Michael: And that tail policy is basically covering everything they did before. And so everyone, employers and doctors alike don’t want to have an uninsured period. The contract will spell it out as to who’s paying for that and it’s not cheap.
Brad: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. And so as we saw in this particular case, as you might be surprised or not surprised, at Dr. Bodacious, Dr. Tuff had to pay for his tail policy.
Brad: Yeah. All great points. And yeah, you’re right. It was boring malpractice talk, or insurance talk. Sorry for insurance providers. We love you. So let’s kind of jump back to our story. What happened after Dr. Tuff gave notice?
Michael: He made it the proverbial eight seconds without getting sued, Brad. It was a rough stretch, made more complicated by the [00:27:00] fact that Dr. Tuff made it known that he was going to buy out the non-compete and stay in town.
Brad: Oh, wow.
Michael: Which, by the way, Brad, it was a $350,000 check and he also had several employees, surprise, surprise, who wanted to go with him.
Brad: Wow. Well, that does complicate things especially if he had a non-solicitation inside of that, but, you know, again, in Texas, if the doctor buys out of that, he can stay in town and you, the employer received the benefit of that buyout. So that’s what happens, but what about that bonus?
Michael: Well, so the way his contract was written was that he had to actually be physically working for the practice the day the bonus was due and because of Dr. Bodacious’ long lineage of suing, he decided to not even give notice until he’d collected the dollars on his bonus. And so [00:28:00] that was part of the strategy was like, you know, literally the day after the check was in his bank account was the day he gave his 90 day notice. And so that took that issue off the table, which obviously when you have to write a $350,000 check…
Brad: You want all the money you get in your bank account.
Michael: Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, otherwise, during that process, Dr. Tuff played nice. He refused to take the bait when the fire came from Dr. Bodacious and believe me it came. Lawsuits were threatened multiple times. Dr. Tuff may have shed a few tears, but he refused to kind of engage in that. He kind of chose the, kill him with kindness strategy and so he got out of there and has an amazing practice to this day. So Brad, you know, tell me what are your final thoughts?
Brad: Knowing who Dr. Tuff is and unfortunately knowing his counsel too, I do think there was some good advice because when you have two bulls smashing heads, [00:29:00] everyone around that would be harmed. And luckily for this particular story, Dr. Tuff was realizing he didn’t want to anger the bull. He wanted to avoid that. And so that hard conversation early on to let him know, but then didn’t take the bait of bumping heads with him. And I think that obviously worked for him because we know Dr. Tuff and he has a very successful practice. Michael, what are some of your final thoughts?
Michael: Well, you know, kind of drawing back to the whole rodeo clown analogy, I mean, in the bullfighting world, they play a role to support the stars of the show and when you’re in an emotionally charged situation as a physician, you need your, I like to say bullfighter, but your rodeo clown. And by the way, sometimes it’s not even your attorney. It’s someone to be your voice of reason, to work through the emotions and not act out of emotion when you’re in a highly charged [00:30:00] situation. I just happen to get to be the bullfighter, Brad. Bullfighter, not rodeo clown. Bullfighter in this situation.
Brad: I’ll let you take that final thought because I’m being nice to you today. Well, audience members, believe or not, that’s all the time we have. Next Wednesday’s show we’ll have our first outside guest whose brave enough to join us for this season of hard conversations. And we’ll be navigating the gray spectrum with Claire O’Brien and Dr. Sarah Allen.
Outro: Thanks again for joining us today, and remember, if you like this episode, please subscribe. Make sure to give us a five star rating and share with your friends. You can also sign up for the ByrdAdatto newsletter by going to our website at ByrdAdatto.com. ByrdAdatto is providing this podcast as a public service. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast does not constitute legal advice, nor does it establish an attorney- client relationship. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by ByrdAdatto. The views expressed by guests are their own, [00:31:00] and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Please consult with an attorney on your legal issues.
