When word got out last week that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Richard Carmona gave some medical advice to a Republican campaign worker with an apparent leg injury, fellow Democrats were loving the feel-good moment.
The Arizona Republican Party -- or at least, its spokesman -- is suspicious of a "hypothetical situation" that sounds almost exactly the same as the incident above.
In this "hypothetical situation," Arizona GOP spokesman Shane Wikfors asks readers of the Sonoran Alliance blog, "Is this a violation of any medical ethics or HIPAA regulations?"
Sure, Carmona got some publicity from his impromptu analysis.
Carmona spokesman Andy Barr posted a picture of Carmona checking out the guy's leg at a campaign event.
"After our tracker's camera battery died, he asked [Carmona] about the bump on his leg," the "tweet" says. "The [Surgeon General] diagnosed a hematoma."
Now, to Wikfors' "hypothetical situation."
"Let's say a doctor is out with associates in a public place. His associates are all staff members of his practice," he writes. "One of the doctor's staffers notices an individual who has a large growth on their arm. Although the individual is slightly bothered by the growth, they are not in any medical distress or emergency."
Toward the end of this "hypothetical situation," a staffer takes a photo and posts it on the Internet, along with the diagnosis and the person's association.
"Is this a violation of any medical ethics or HIPAA regulations?" Wikfors asks.
Blasting Carmona's camp for publicizing the event would've been the expected response if a response was really needed.
Wikfors writes that he's going to "let the comments roll before [he provides] an update," which we'll guess won't involve an FBI raid on the Carmona office for HIPAA violations.
