PLSO The Oregon Surveyor Sept/Oct 2019

Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org 3 From the Editor • The severity of the condition (i.e. is their life at risk or in jeopardy of being severely foreshortened, or their mental health deteriorating) • The ineffectiveness of pain management • The lack of ability to find competent medical treatment (via any number of circumstances), whether due to geographic limitations or simply the patient’s lack of knowledge on how to find suitable medical resources (perhaps the most common thread) • Is the patient a veteran with treat- ment having been provided only via the Veteran’s Administration medical facilities? • The age of the patient (obviously, the only treatment for a geriatric like me may simply be palliative) Clearly, this list is by no means exhaus- tive, but if you watch the program, you can’t help but come away from it with your sense of wonder jump-started. I for one was driven to righteous indigna- tion by doctors who were suing patients for non-payment when their diagnosis/ treatments were clearly ineffective or outright wrong, which to me certainly doesn’t sound very professional. So, you may be wondering where I’m going with this? No, we’re not medical professionals, but yes, we are profes- sionals, nevertheless. I think most of us sincerely try to do right by our clients, de- velop equitable (and defensible) boundary resolutions and prepare adequate docu- mentationof ourmeans/methods to reach resolutions, all at the request of a client who may be at their wits end in seeking remedies to disputes with their neigh- bor over a common boundary (sound remotely familiar?). If we encounter a particularly “thorny” boundary problem, some of us may ac- tually reach out to other land surveyors to see if they might have had a similar experience. These inquiries may occur at chapter meetings with our peers through our professional affiliations, via the Inter- net through web applications like chat rooms or sites like RPLS.com , through conference seminars or workshops, or via recorded surveys. Whatever the avenue, much like the medical profession, finding a solution to a difficult boundary resolve may require a long and convoluted search through many different sources, some of which may not be readily apparent (or available) to the local surveyor. This may also be confounded by a surveyor caught in the situation of practicing out- side their area of expertise! Regardless of the mechanisms, I have found it’s easier to sleep at night knowing your research was thorough. Howev- er, there may be those instances where, despite all your best efforts, some de- finitive record exists which was never uncovered. This is where a robust profes- sional network with unhindered access to information exists. I have experienced first-hand the resentment exhibited by local surveyors when one of the big firms over in the valley comes east of the Cas- cades to do survey work on turf which the local surveyors feel ownership. They may be reluctant to share information and would probably not pick up the phone to offer help with local knowledge after they learn your firm is in the area work- ing on a piece of “their” turf. I also know how difficult it is to make a living as a land surveyor on the east side of the mountains, so I can understand where this attitude might arise. This brings me to the aforementioned Netflix program “Diagnosis.” I believe the parallels between the medical profession (not to mention others) and ours are striking. Our profession is better served when we are willing to share information. The land record data sets are enriched, property owners are better served, and selfishly, access to pertinent information relative to a survey we may be working on becomes easier and more thorough. That’s a win-win for all the players. Some of the situations disclosed through the program Diagnosis may make the dif- ference between life or death, and I’ve got to say, few of us could draw that conclusion regarding the outcome of a boundary resolution, but maybe to a client who is caught in the grips of a “Hat- fields and McCoys” dispute over a fence location doesn’t see it as benign. I real- ize such situations may only amount to a “tempest in a teapot,” but wouldn’t it be more professional to quit taking such a proprietary view of our work? After all, once the survey is recorded, everyone can see what you’ve done. x