my wife is a physician and she went to a very extensive workshop that taught her how to deal with irrate/crazy/irrational patients that she will undoubtedly see. they taught her to pick her battles and not to sweat every single patient that's crazy, otherwise she would get burnt out and go crazy herself. she's the one that keeps me from going ballistic on all the bad and inconsiderate LA drivers. i'm sure most physicians have gone through a similar workshop, so as Quicksilver said, the punk's actions/attitude must have been so threatening that it caused the good doc to forget what he learned.