Destroying Medical Ethics (What Ethics?)

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http://www.cchr.org/doctors/eng/page24.htm

 

DESTROYING MEDICAL ETHICS

 

 

" Suicide, stress, divorce—psychologists and other mental health

professionals may actually be more screwed up than the rest of us. "

 

— Psychology Today,

1997

 

 

Colin Bouwer

In 2002, psychiatrist Colin Bouwer (above), former head of

psychological medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand, was

jailed for 15 years for slowly poisoning and killing his wife. Right:

American psychiatrist, Michael DeLain was jailed for two years in 2002

for sexually exploiting a 16-year-old patient.

 

 

Beyond the many good medical reasons that non-psychiatric physicians

have to resist the mental health vision of psychiatrists, there is

also the matter of preserving their reputation.

 

While medicine has nurtured an enviable record of achievement and

general popular acceptance, the public still links psychiatry to snake

pits, straightjackets, and " One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. " The

industry certainly has done little to enhance that perception with its

development of brutal treatments such as ECT, psychosurgery, the

chemical straightjacketing of antipsychotic drugs, and its long record

of treatment failures.

 

In the area of fraud, psychiatry is considerably over-represented.

According to a veteran California health care fraud investigator, one

of the simplest ways to detect fraud is to review the drug

prescription records of psychiatrists. A study of Medicaid and

Medicare insurance fraud in the United States, especially in New York,

between 1977 and 1995, showed psychiatry to have the worst track

record of all medical disciplines.128

 

In 2000, Tennessee psychiatrist Jan A. Mayer was sentenced to three

years prison and ordered to pay $398,833 in restitution for his role

in a scheme to submit false bills to several government and private

insurance agencies, including bills for 24 straight hours of work,

once while he was vacationing in Puerto Rico.

 

In 2000, Mainz, Germany psychiatrist Otto Benkert was sentenced to

eleven months in jail, suspended in lieu of probation, fined $176,171

and ordered to pay $704,683 in compensation for defrauding the

university where he worked as the Chief of Psychiatry.

 

On December 1, 1998, police raided three private psychiatric hospitals

in Ticino, Switzerland, arresting renowned psychiatrist and owner of

the facilities, Dr. Renzo Realini, for fraud and falsifying documents.

Records showed that Realini had been billing for 30-hour days.

 

Psychiatrists and therapists are also notorious for exploiting their

patients' vulnerabilities and trust to take sexual advantage of them.

A 1998 review of United States medical board actions against 761

physicians disciplined for sex-related offenses from 1981 to 1996,

found that psychiatry and child psychiatry were significantly

over-represented. While psychiatrists accounted for only 6.3% of

physicians in the country, they comprised 27.9% of physicians

disciplined for sex-related offenses.129

 

 

[Picture]

FRAUD AND ABUSE: A 1998 Swedish medical board (above) report found

that psychiatry was responsible for nearly half of the mistreatments

of patients reported to the board and referred to prosecution for

further action. In Switzerland, renowned psychiatrist, Renzo Realini

(top right), was charged with fraud and falsifying documents, after

billing for 30-hour days. In the U.S. psychiatric fraud is rampant,

with government agencies, including the FBI, forced to raid a major

private psychiatric hospital chain, National Medical Enterprises

(above). Because of psychiatry's fraud and abuse, the company paid a

$379 million fine.

 

 

 

The United States is not unique in this regard. A 1998 report from

Sweden's Social Board—that country's medical board—on complaints over

a four-year period found that psychiatry was responsible for nearly

half of the mistreatments of patients reported to the board. These

were so gross—involving violence and sexual abuse—that they were

referred to prosecutors for further action.130

 

It is not surprising to find that psychiatrists have serious problems

with their own mental stability. One concern among professionals is

that it attracts people who are particularly anxious about their

emotional stability. One survey of 531 psychiatrists showed 25% had

chosen the field of psychiatry because of their own psychiatric

problems or treatment.131 The British Medical Journal has pointed to

the disproportionate number of suicides among psychiatrists.132

 

Here are some not so well known statistics:

 

Several studies have confirmed that psychiatrists have the highest

suicide rate among physicians. In one study, 56% of those in the

suicide group had prescribed a psychoactive drug for themselves and

42% had been seeing a mental health professional at the time of their

self-inflicted death.133

 

Between 10% and 25% of mental health practitioners admit to sexually

abusing their patients.

 

Psychiatrists are most likely of all medical physicians to get a divorce.

 

In 1995, the AMA reported that psychiatrists have higher rates of

alcohol abuse and abuse of both prescription and other drugs.134

 

Another study reports that Swiss psychiatrists are more likely to use

sleeping pills and tranquilizers than other medical specialists.135

 

Whether one's personal philosophy is religious or secular, it takes

very little to observe that the speed of change in society is

accelerating and that many changes do not bode well for the future.

 

The erosion of medical ethical standards continues and medicine has

not escaped unscathed. The Hippocratic Oath, the encapsulation of

medical ethics for centuries, has been attacked as outmoded and

irrelevant, and has been even legislated out of medicine in at least

one country. Even more troubling, the safeguards against human

experimentation inherent in the Nuremburg Code appear to have been

whittled away.

 

At the same time, radical changes in the organization and funding of

medicine in many countries have wreaked havoc with a physician's

ability to not only practice medicine ethically, but to survive

financially.

 

Against this backdrop, the practice of medicine is experiencing

another sweeping change—the broad influx of psychiatric influence. As

ethical practitioners are an essential part of a profession's

standing, it may behoove non-psychiatric physicians to consider the

likely consequences for medicine itself.