Dr Cretin Has a Big Family - Part 2

 

Yesterday , you'll remember I mentioned the case of a vulnerable youth who was treated with sheer incompetence by a consultant psychiatrist.

I wrote:

"If a doctor is so uncaring or so lacking in people skills one wonders whether he is even safe to practice."

There is more to this story.  The youth's mother complained about the psychiatrist and this is what happened.  Again thanks are due to Zarathustra at mentalnurse.org.uk who posted again.  A large extract is shown below:

"..... one side-topic that’s been raised in the comments thread is the use of psychopathology as a way of dismissing complaints.

Remember this case? The emo kid who came to CAMHS and found himself being hectored by a consultant psychiatrist, accused of being in a cult and having his depression and self-harm dismissed as a fashion trend. Funnily enough, his mother made a complaint against the psychiatrist.

The case was discussed with another psychiatrist in CAMHS, who had not met the patient or his family. Nor had he read the notes. His response to the complaint?

    “I guarantee you that this boy has an unstable personality disorder, and I’d be willing to bet that the mother has an unstable personality disorder too.”

Psychopathology shouldn’t be used to ignore or dismiss a complaint, especially when that complaint is actually well-founded. Unfortunately, it can and does happen, and when it does, it stinks."

 

Hadn't seen the family; hadn't read the notes but yet he'd diagnosed both the mother and her son.   

Was he interested in the truth?  NO!

Was he interested in the youth's health?  NO!

What confidence could one have that he would display any professionalism in his normal psychiatric role?  NONE!

What confidence can one have in the complaints ' procedure if one is dismissed as rudely as this?  NONE!

[Deb has already posted about the NHS complaints system.]

Zarathustra is right.  This stinks but he doesn't go far enough.  This other psychiatrist has acted with such arrogance and prejudice that one should consider his fitness to practice. 

Here we have two psychiatrists in one department acting in most appalling ways.  Two Dr Cretins in one department!  How many Dr Cretins must there be through out the Health Service?  Doctors, whose function is to treat the ill, have not shown any compassion, care, respect, understanding, empathy but only incompetence, arrogance and prejudice which is likely, in many cases, to lead to a worsening of any condition.

These Dr Cretins are not fit to be doctors.

Unfortunately, from what I have read recently, many doctors are ready to blame errors on the system, management, targets but are reluctant to blame their colleagues.  This must change.

I have written elsewhere that I will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with doctors who are fighting against the victimisation of doctors by the medical hierarchy and I will continue to do so. 

BUT I will stand against any doctor who behaves like these Dr Cretins or who defends these Dr Cretins.  The time has come for the main body of doctors to stand beside patients and demand that their failing colleagues be removed from front-line medicine. 

The health of patients is much much more important than the rigid support of doctors by their peers.