eBook Excerpt - Is your doctor a sociopath?

Below is an excerpt from Hospital Hazards: A Former RN's Guide to Get Out Alive that I'm about to get published.  Please leave a comment and share with people you think would be interested to know more about how to protect themselves from hazardous hospitals.

Chapter 7 – Is your doctor a sociopath?

“Eighty-five percent of doctors, nearly six out of seven, refuse to use [computerized physician order entry systems] even when they know it saves lives, avoids unnecessary illnesses, and saves money.  There is no other place in American life where personal prejudice is allowed to risk the loss of life or the imposition of unnecessary illness.”  Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Author, Saving Lives and Saving Money.

In this chapter I will argue that a major contributing factor – perhaps the top factor – for why there are so many hospital hazards is directly related to the physicians’ sociopathic power over patients, nurses, and hospital administrators. 

In Chapter 1, I opined that most nurses enter the profession to help people rather than for a paycheck. Based on my interactions with hundreds of doctors through the course of my nine-year career, I will go out on a limb and state that the exact opposite is more true for doctors than not.  When one considers that medical doctors are practically guaranteed a six-figure income and for many, more importantly, prestige and power – it is understandable that people with sociopathic tendencies will be attracted to careers in medicine.

According to an online dictionary, a sociopath is: “a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.”

History is a great educator.  Consider the following figures that lead countries into ruin – Stalin, Mae Tse Tung, Lenin, Hitler.  These men were intensely flawed psychologically.  What do these historical figures have in common with physicians?  People looked up to them as god-like.  People worshiped them, hung on their every word, believed they had special powers, and were willing to kill in the name of obedience to their orders. Those leaders got their power through the minds of their subjects.

Notice the similarities between those past historical icons and today’s physicians.  Our society considers physicians to be at the top of the healthcare food chain.  People who are not part of the medical “club,” tend to look up to physicians as having special powers.  We’ve been told that doctors get tons of training and that they save lives. They give orders to patients and nurses.  Patients obey their orders because they believe the obedience will heal them.  Nurses obey orders for three reasons:  laws require it; fear of losing their jobs; and the most important reason nurses obey doctors is because of the “authority” that nurses mistakenly believe doctors have over them.

Doctors get their power through the minds of we the subjects.  In the rare case when a doctor enters the profession altruistically to heal, how long before that doc gets full of himself?  People will hang on every one of his words.  In other words, the god complex kicks into the minds of physicians and it’s pretty difficult – not impossible – but very, very difficult to be humble amidst all the lavish glory that surrounds them.

Now let’s use another group of individuals who have a high rate of sociopaths – law enforcers.  With guns, badges, and the law on their side, how many officers abuse their powers?  And what recourse would a victim of police abuse have?  Should a harmed individual go to a law enforcement supervisor or to the FBI? What are the odds that another law enforcer will hold the offending police accountable?  Should the victim appeal to the city council or a mayor?  Two reasons why the answer is a resounding no!  First, elected officials depend on the protection of law enforcers.  Second, powerful police unions helped get those officials elected.  Therefore, elected officials will likely not want to bite the hand that feeds and protects it.

Now let’s compare.  If you are harmed by a physician, who are you going to turn to for justice?  Most physicians work independently so it’s not likely you can appeal to a supervisor.  You can complain to the State to try to get them disciplined or disbarred.  But who do you think has had the most influence in writing laws that pertain to physicians?  It would be the American Medical Association (AMA) and its state’s counterparts.  They are like big doctor unions.  They are all over the lawmakers to keep a close eye on their interests.

What about turning to elected officials?  How do you think those elected officials got elected if they didn’t rely heavily on the support of powerful physicians’ lobbies? What about going to the hospital administrators to complain about a doctor?  That would be like a victim of police brutality complaining to the mayor.  Like elected officials depend on law enforcers to keep them in power, hospital administrators depend on physicians for their economic livelihood.

Indeed, the medical profession is so highly regarded by the public that one sits alongside the President of the United States.  He or she is called, “The Surgeon General.”

There is a cartel culture among many physicians. They protect their own often at the expense of patients.  I have read numerous sources where a doctor breaks ranks with his own to expose the corruption he sees among his peers.  Yet, I have yet to see a case where a doctor put his career on the line to fix the problem.

To revisit my law enforcement analogy:  Recently with the help of the Internet, there have been tons of reports about police brutality.  The typical public response is to defend law enforcers and blame “a few bad apples.”  The reality is that EVERY SINGLE LAW ENFORCER knows about colleagues that are terrorizing people that they are supposed to be serving.  Yet, the vast majority of all police officers look the other way.  Their motive to keep silent is usually to keep their jobs, or to avoid peer ostracism.  Therefore, every police officer who turns his back to justice by avoiding confrontation with a “bad apple” is guilty by avoidance. 

The same happens within the medical professions.  You have residents who are working under an established, high-ranking doctor.  Those residents depend on the doctor to advance their career.  And some of those residents expose atrocities they witness AFTER they are safe from professional ostracism.  They keep quiet to avoid jeopardizing years of grueling training.  I ask you – if it was your loved one that was killed by a deadly doctor while a resident watched, how much sympathy would YOU feel for that resident when you find out he chose the safety of his profession over the life of your loved one?