What Doctors Don't Tell YouAnyone who sees medicine as a closed group, especially to ‘troublemakers’ who want to complain, might have to adjust their superlatives should they ever try to break down the doors of psychiatry.
Psychiatry is the most secret of groups, almost immune to any complaint of abuse or maltreatment, as patients discovered when they tried to ‘out’ two psychiatrists.
The two psychiatrists have been accused of sexually abusing vulnerable female patients throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and they were able to get away with it because of the culture within the profession of ‘turning a blind eye’, a Department of Health independent inquiry has concluded.
Despite the barrage of complaints against the two, nothing was ever done, and both were able to retire in the late 1980s. They were also allowed to voluntarily remove themselves from the medical register, so avoiding any disciplinary hearing by the General Medical Council.
The inquiry found that all complaints were ignored, consultants were viewed as being ‘all powerful’, and colleagues were reluctant to raise concerns about fellow professionals.
Fortunately, the legal process was prepared to act, even if the medical groups weren’t, and one of the two psychiatrists was jailed in 2003 on four counts of indecently assaulting patients, and the other was convicted in 2000 on one count of indecent assault.
Could it also be that the profession was not prepared to act because the accusers were female, and ones categorized, no doubt, as hysterical or unstable?
Steve Taylor
Elliott Dacher MD
Dr. Judith Orloff MD