This group has been protected from criticism for the better part of a generation. They have enjoyed making authoritative pronouncements as unexamined authority. Their power depends entirely on not being questioned as what is behind the curtain is flimsy and dredged,  a Potemkin village.   The recent Medscape and BMJ articles are revealing that confrontation with direct and precise questions results in nothing but logical fallacy, distortions and lies.  They are utterly incapable of responding with a direct and precise answer.   Gunderson’s response to absent oversight  is just another example of this logical fallacy and distortion.  This is not how rational authority responds. This is not how legitimate authority responds.  I kindly invite her to debate this.  I would like a back-and-forth to clarify.  It is a simple question that deserves a simple answer and I know she follows my blog as she used her own name and e-mail address.

Source: One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results

“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?” 
― L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Any critical analysis would reveal cherry picking and proof by anecdote; deceptive propaganda and double talk; contradictory, illogical and incomprehensible jabber; unprovable and  un-disprovable statements and a panoply of logical fallacy.  These groups suppress specific questions and deliberately avoid key facts. They misrepresent, censor, nit pick and split hairs to make  “data” fit their hypothesis.     Little is behind the curtain.    The concept of denial is not just used to force people into “assessments” and provide unneeded treatment but used to  justify ongoing and unmitigated coercion and abuse.  They have been left alone to proliferate like feral cats for the past generation–unopposed, unexamined and unquestioned.  Lord of the Flies Medicine.  So why are we not questioning this “authority?”

Source: Question Authority: The Need for Anti-Authoritarians in the Medical Profession

The current physician health program/ medical board  system is beyond fixing. We need a mass movement to demand radical progressive change. Doctors are dropping like flies!  In almost all states today any physician referred for an “assessment” by their state PHP  will be mandated to do so at  a facility just like Ridgeview.   There is no choice. There is one difference however.   When the Ridgeview suicides occurred the plethora of laboratory developed tests were not yet introduced.

A decade ago Dr. Gregory Skipper introduced the first laboratory developed test for forensic testing and used it on doctors in physician health programs.   These non-FDA approved tests of unknown validity presented a new unpredictable variable into the mix with a positive test necessitating another assessment at an out of state treatment facility—a “PHP-approved” assessment facility. The addition of this laboratory Russian Roulette renders the current system much worse than it was at the time of the Ridgeview suicides.

And if a positive test occurs there are no safeguards protecting the donor. LDTs are unregulated by the FDA. There is no oversight and no one to file a complaint with.

State PHPs currently  have no oversight or regulation.  They police themselves. Medical boards, departments of public health and medical societies provide no oversight. They don’t look and they don’t care. Zero accountability.   This needs to change.

Source: Physician Suicide and Organizational Justice: The Role of Hopelessness, Helplessness and Defeat

Please donate to this effort below.  Your contribution can and will make a difference.  https://www.gofundme.com/PHPReform

Judge Carey determined that two former assistant attorneys general — Anne Kaczmarek and Kris Foster — compounded the damage done by Farak, and that their actions were “in many ways more damning.” The prosecutors took steps to conceal these work sheets from the court and local prosecutors, as well as from defendants challenging Farak’s analysis in their cases, he found.Kaczmarek left the attorney general’s office in 2014 and is now an assistant clerk magistrate in Suffolk County.“I am proud of my 16 years of working for the people of Massachusetts. I disagree with the Court’s decision and the characterization of my conduct in this case,” “The nature and scope of governmental misconduct by Kaczmarek and Foster in withholding evidence was severe,” Carey wrote. “It continued for a prolonged period, in violation of many drug lab defendants’ constitutional rights.”

Source: Judge finds prosecutor misconduct in handling of Amherst drug lab cases–Boston Globe

Source: Monopolies, Self-Referral and Shell Games: The Need for Antitrust Investigation of Physician Health Programs and their “PHP-Approved” Assessment and Treatment Centers

Source: The “Impaired Physician Movement” and the History of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM): The need for critical appraisal by truly independent organizations

Source: The Need for Anti-Trust and OIG Investigation of Physician Health Programs—Sunshine is the Best Disinfectant!

It is necessary that we conform our thinking and behavior to objective reality rather than an illusion and the version of the physician health model being pushed by those promoting the “PHP-blueprint”   is at marked variance to those being managed by it. For  further reading start with the following:

1.  British Medical Journal feature “Physician health programs under fire” by Jeanne Lenzer
2. The “PHP-Blueprint”–A Trojan Horse for Profit and Wider Social Control:  Watching helplessly, as Cassandra did, while the soldiers emerge and wreak their predicted havoc.
3. “New Paradigm” is a business model not a medical model
4. Physician Suicide and “Physician Wellness” –Time to start talking about the elephant in the room!

Watching helplessly, as Cassandra did, while the soldiers emerge and wreak their predicted havoc.

Source: How your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is at Risk for Fraud and Abuse: What you need to know about the “PHP-Blueprint” and “New Paradigm”