Is it unseemly to ask my doctor's widow for a referral?

At times when you want to get something, but getting that something involves doing something you don’t feel comfortable doing, what should you do? That’s pretty much the question a reader we’re calling Bri wants to know.

Bri has chronic back pain. For about 30 years, she has paid regular visits to the same chiropractor. Bri wrote that her sessions with her chiropractor offered relief from back pain. At first Bri visited the chiropractor weekly, but as time went on and she was able to manage the pain better, the sessions became monthly.

About three years ago, Bri’s chiropractor died after a brief illness. Bri wrote that she was devastated at the news, not just because of how good a practitioner she found him to be but because she got to know him over the years and truly liked him. Her chiropractor’s wife managed his office, and his daughter often worked the reception desk when she was on breaks from school. Bri wrote that she didn’t know how she would ever be able to find a replacement for her chiropractor.

Her concern has turned out to be as challenging as she worried it would be. Over the past three years, she has tried working with four different chiropractors, but none used an approach that was similar to her former chiropractor’s. She also had the sense that the chiropractors she tried were mostly trying to fit in as many patients as possible, so she often felt her sessions were rushed. What concerned her more is none resulted in the same kind of pain relief she had experienced working with her former chiropractor.

“I know that he probably knew others who practiced similarly to him,” Bri wrote. “But sadly, he’s not around to ask.”

But Bri also suspects her former chiropractor’s widow would likely be able to recommend other practitioners with a similar approach.

“I don’t feel comfortable asking her for recommendations,” Bri wrote. “It seems unseemly given that I’d be asking her about a replacement for her dead husband.” But Bri is at her wits' end and wanted to know if it indeed would be wrong to contact her former chiropractor’s widow for a recommendation.

It may make Bri feel uncomfortable to make such a request, but there is absolutely nothing unseemly about doing so. She would be wise to avoid broaching the subject by asking about “a replacement for your dead husband,” but instead she can remind the widow how good she found her chiropractor to be and was hoping she might be able to recommend someone who possibly could come close to using a similar approach.

While I can understand that Bri doesn’t want to make it sound like the only downside to her chiropractor’s death was her loss of him as a practitioner, she might find that his widow would actually appreciate being reminded of how valued he was by his patients when he was alive.

If Bri wants a reference and believes her former chiropractor’s widow might provide, the right thing to do is to ask her.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

There are times when a winning move is not reflected in the score of the game

There are times when determining who the winner of an event is doesn’t always match up to the final score of the game. Consider the recent Southwest Little League Baseball playoff game between a team from Pearland, Texas, and another from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Whoever won the game would clinch a spot in the 2022 Little League World Series.

Shortly after that game on Tuesday, Aug. 9, news of it went viral, not because of the outcome of the game, but because of an event that occurred in the bottom of the first inning when Isaiah Jarvis of Tulsa was up to bat against Kaiden Shelton of Pearland. Shortly after their faceoff, a clip of part of their exchange was shared widely.

In the video, Jarvis wearing a powder blue uniform, awaited a pitch from Shelton. The pitcher had been doing well against Jarvis, having him at an 0-2 count. One more strike and Jarvis would be out. But the next pitch hit the portion of Jarvis’ batting helmet covering his left ear. His helmet flew off and Jarvis hit the ground. Shelton, the pitcher, can be seen walking off the mound toward the first-base line. Moments later, Jarvis arose after being attended to first by a coach from the opposing team who came to home plate and then a first aid worker. He was applauded by the crowd as he took first base, but pitcher Shelton still appeared to be shaken. In the video, he was looking down at the pitcher’s mound, holding the back of his maroon cap with his right hand, and he appeared to be fighting off tears.

“I thought I really hurt him, and I was really scared,” Shelton later told a Houston television station reporter. “I’m just glad he’s better.”

Before any coaches or teammates took to the mound to console a young pitcher clearly struggling to gain his composure, Jarvis looked in his direction and noticed the boy was in despair. He tossed his batting helmet aside and walked from first base to the mound and, as Shelton was still grasping the back of his cap, Jarvis put his arms around Shelton’s waist and hugged him. As Jarvis pat Shelton on his left shoulder, Shelton’s teammates on the field and his coach walked out to console him as well. Before he turns to walk back to first base, Jarvis reportedly said to Shelton: “Hey, you’re doing great. Let’s go.”

The game continued, but the focus of most people has been on that less-than-two-minute clip of what went down in the bottom of the first inning.

In a post-game interview with a Tulsa reporter, Jarvis acknowledged he wanted to let the pitcher know he was all right when he saw him struggling. “Who knows?” Jarvis asked. “He could have saw me as trying to fight him. I was proud of myself for being brave like that.”

Pearland won the game and moved on to the World Series. But a true winning moment was when Jarvis did the right thing and without hesitation decided a fellow player’s well-being at that moment was the most important thing.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2022 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.