3 sneaky ways the lucrative wellness industry injures doctors →

Physician Wellness Market

3 sneaky ways the lucrative physician wellness industry injures doctors. Common tactics ALL health professionals must understand. PLEASE SHARE WIDELY.

1. Using victim-blaming terms like “burnout” to obscure systemic human rights violations.

“Burnout” blames the victim who is enduring human rights abuse on a daily basis. Work-life balance impossible to achieve. Benchmarks. Metrics. Inefficient. Unprofessional. Resilience is a frequently used word to blame doctors who are truly among the most resilient human beings on the planet and need no further training in how to be resilient; they simply need to be treated with respect for the incredible value they have to society. Read more words that blame doctors and words we should be using instead.

2. Offering “voluntary” and “confidential” help that is neither voluntary nor confidential.

Many institutional “wellness” programs entrap docs by deceptively claiming they are “voluntary” and “confidential.” Once roped in, you cannot leave if you want your license. Physician “Health” Programs (PHPs) repeat these words ad nauseam to lure gullible docs. The minute docs do not comply with non-standard therapies (including polygraphs!) they are reported to the board as “noncompliant” and lose their medical license. Programs are not “voluntary” and “confidential” when your employer and med board have access to your files and use your “protected health information” (PHI) to further retaliate against you. Even worse, your PHI can be published in print newspapers & online (even on the med board’s Facebook page!).

Physicians share:

“After the unexpected death of a patient, I sought counseling. By a stroke of (bad) luck, I picked the only one in town in charge of impaired physician monitoring. He told the board (though stable) I should be ‘monitored.’ I had to defend myself in front of the Florida board. They laughed in my face and then posted in the local newspapers that I was sentenced to 5 yrs of monitoring. I had mandatory Wednesday group therapy. Though I was an exemplary physician, my employers had to be told why I was unavailable for call every Wednesday. Each time I (re)credential with hospitals, I must explain the whole thing again. HIPAA for me does not exist. I have never missed a single day of work for mental health.”

“Do you know what really hurts? The fact that anyone can look me up on the Internet and read my dirty laundry. I’m publicly shamed [by my medical board], punished for being ill. I will only know peace when I am gone.”

3. Claiming physician “health” programs (PHPs) prevent doctor suicide when doctors are dying by suicide inside these so-called “health” programs.

I now know 27 docs who died by suicide inside PHPs. Survivors report:

“You will begin to question your sanity. Techniques are based on humiliation and shame . . . underlying philosophy is total emotional and psychological destruction. It took every ounce of strength not to leave here a broken human being. . . Physicians have taken their own lives after completing ‘treatment’ here.”

“My best friend there killed himself two days after I left,” another physician reported. “I saw the staff systematically break him down until he had no personality or emotion. He was a shell after the public humiliation.”

Here’s how one stellar doctor died under the care of a “health” program. Read his last words here.

If you’re thinking this cannot possibly be true, please watch these podcasts on how physicians are held against their will in out-of-state PHP “preferred” facilities that worsen their mental health and lead to new-onset suicidal thoughts and suicide.

PHPs: Complex Problems & Solutions

PHPs: A Cautionary Tale & Message of Hope!

FREE HELP: Weekly Peer Support Groups Sunday. To join, contact Dr. Wible.

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PHPs: A Cautionary Tale & Message of Hope! →

Join us for this spirited discussion surrounding issues with Physician Health Programs (PHPs). Drs. Pamela Wible and Dominic Corrigan discuss how they have been impacted by physician struggles, and their views on proposed solutions. The three of us share a strong desire to offer hope and help to doctors! As Dom says, we need to make it safe and easy for physicians to seek support. Pamela adds that it is heartening to see all the doctors, and resources, emerging. We’ve heard many stories of physicians who didn’t want anyone to know that they were struggling. We continue to amplify the message to doctors that you are never alone; please do not suffer in silence! Doctors are repeatedly sharing that they wish they had sought help sooner, and that they wasted too much time putting on a solid front, while actually feeling miserable and trapped. There are MANY physicians who have emerged stronger on the other side, including Pamela and Dom. Do not wait until you hit rock bottom to ask for help; so many people care about you and are ready to support you, no matter what! Dom’s support website: https://physiciansanonymous.org/ Pamela’s website: https://www.idealmedicalcare.org/  Thank you Kim Downey, a vocal patient standing up for doctors! 💕

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Medical mistakes—how to heal guilt, shame, and self-blame →

Late last night I got this email: “Hello I am a nurse struggling with a medical error that may have led to a patient death and I need support.”

I texted her:

I called her just after midnight.

I asked how she found me. She said I was the only one offering support groups for medical mistakes. She gave me permission to publish this in hopes of helping others.

Three years into her nursing career working in a busy US urban hospital, she had just come on shift when one man who had been up in bed eating breakfast and speaking with her 30 minutes prior suddenly died. His code was a dramatic, gruesome scene.

Afterwards, the doctor told her she did nothing wrong. Yet ten years later she still blames herself for his death.

“Did I kill him?”

“Is it my fault?”

“Should I contact the hospital CEO?”

She still has so many questions.

Why?

All unexpected deaths require debriefing ideally within 24 hours.

Without peer support, we’re left in professional confusion and emotional isolation.

Knowing the cause of his death would have allowed her to (1) make sense of the situation; (2) learn how to help similar patients in the future; and (3) prevent a decade of intrusive thoughts.

This nurse needs closure.

Like a movie ending in a “cliffhanger,” the viewer leaves with unresolved questions. Without a sequel, viewers feel forever frustrated.

Suppressing feelings and sensations (subconsciously gnawing away at her) does not resolve suffering as buried memories continue to resurface.

Patient death PTSD happens when the visceral experience of witnessing a death is stored in your body. Sights, smells, and sensations take you back to the death scene instantly without warning.

Who is to blame?

Not the nurse.

Hazardous hospital conditions with understaffing lead to overwork, poor supervision, communication breakdown, and medical mistakes.

Unexpected patient deaths are not always caused by mistakes.

This nurse couldn’t have averted his death. She just happened be on shift as a witness.

Without a confirmed cause of death, perfectionists default into self-doubt, self-blame, and self-harm that may end in suicide.

Perfectionist people pleasers with savior complex often develop in childhood as parentified children trying to help parents with health issues. As a child, this nurse desperately tried to help her parents’ mental health issues. Her career motivation began with the desire to save her loved ones. Being unable to save this patient may trigger her deep-seated pain of being unable to save her parents as a child.

On a spiritual note . . .

Survivors of near-death-experiences report a state of bliss on the other side. Most don’t want to return to the pain of human life. So this man is now a free spirit.

“The most generous thing you can do now is to allow him to be free by not using him to punish yourself.”

“Doesn’t he want revenge?” she asked.

“No. He wants you to be free of your suffering.”

We spoke for one hour and 25 minutes.

By the end of our call, she felt she could finally sleep.

After ten years of dark thoughts, she can now rest in peace—without dying.

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Hospital fines doctors for keeping patients healthy →

Hospital taxes doctors for keeping patients healthy.

To care for patients in the hospital, docs have to be on staff and pay yearly dues. I was paying $300/year. Then I got a bill for $700. Why? I only had one patient in the hospital last year. Docs admitting more than 25 patients/year still paid $300. I got fined because my patients were too healthy.

Same thing with my friend in his residency program. He helped his patients quit smoking, lose weight, reverse their diabetes. His program director called him into his office. He thought he was getting an award. Instead he was reprimanded for not generating enough money for the hospital with cardiac caths and other expensive tests. He got punished for keeping patients healthy.

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Can’t pay your hospital bills? Call 1-800-U-R-FUCKED (Seriously) →

Can’t pay your hospital bills?

Call 1-800-U-R-FUCKED (1-800-873-8253).

Seriously.

This is my Catholic hospital.

“Thank you for calling PeaceHealth Patient Financial Services. To make a payment, request an itemized bill, hear your last payment, or check your balance, press one . . .”

The nuns would never approve.

To work here, we had to memorize and recite this mission statement: “We carry on the healing mission of Jesus Christ by promoting personal and community health, relieving pain and suffering, and treating each person in a loving and caring way.”

Problem with MBAs running nonprofit hospitals is I had to see so many patients per day I couldn’t fulfill that beautiful mission.

The hypocrisy made me physically sick.

So I quit and opened a community clinic where I’ve never turned anyone away for lack of money—to finally provide the love and care people deserve from their doctor.

Pamela Wible, M.D., has helped hundreds of doctors launch ideal medical clinics in their communities. Want to break free from assembly-line medicine? Contact Dr. Wible.

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