The first time Gayle Woodson, MD, went on an international otolaryngology outreach mission 15 years ago, she was “a little afraid to go.” The chair of otolaryngology at Southern Illinois University in Springfield was traveling to Tanzania, a country prone to violence and war, and there was no telling what kind of environment she was entering.
A physician who was recently offered a lucrative position with an otolaryngology practice in his community asked me to review his current employment agreement to determine if it contained any prohibitions against accepting the job. His previous employment contract contained a noncompetition clause that, justifiably, caused him and his prospective employer some concern. As it turned out, in his case, and in many others, the noncompetition clause was not as restrictive as it appeared at first glance. The provision was penetrable and my client joined the new practice with a clear conscience that he was not in violation of his previous contract.
When Rahul Shah, MD, then a pediatric otolaryngologist at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and several colleagues first undertook a survey of otolaryngologists’ reactions to adverse events in 2004, they provided a blank form for respondents to write about what had happened. In the more than 200 responses they received, Dr. Shah and his colleagues read an outpouring of emotion.