Bay WindowsLaura Kiritsy
lkiritsy@baywindows.com
Asked by IRS attorney John Mikalchus whether or not he agreed with Ellaborn's and Coleman's individual assessments that O'Donnabhain was in good shape from a psychological and psychiatric point of view prior to her sex-reassignment surgery, Schmidt replied that the fact that neither seemed to know of her history of other disorders posed a dilemma. "I don't want to be critical," Schmidt replied. "... It's difficult for me to not to take that into consideration when weighing the accuracy of [Ellaborn's and Coleman's] notes." Schmidt went on to say that the fact that O'Donnabhain was being treated with anti-depressants prior to her surgery should have been known to Ellaborn, who testified that she treated O'Donnabhain for about five years, and Coleman, who stated he did a two-hour consultation with O'Donnabhain to specifically evaluate her fitness for sex-reassignment surgery. It may not have impacted their decisions to recommend the surgery, said Schmidt. But he added, "We'll never know that." Schmidt explained that knowledge of "co-morbidity" — the coexistence of two or more diagnosable conditions or diseases in an individual — is important because the treatment of one condition can worsen the symptoms of another condition. "The clinical challenge is to be able to parse out how they affect each other."
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I do not have the paper in front of me but there was an article about two years back or so that showed a reduced co-morbidity for post op patients.
