This is the fourth in the Persecution Series – a continuation of the letter to the H of Commons posted earlier this week. Click on the image to view the words and the detail.
Abuse is always repeated
I was referred to GMC some 8 years ago. Then the referral came from David Nutt and Guy Goodwin, professors of psychiatry in Bristol and Oxford, who as the basis of the complaint used an article by James Coyne, a psychologist in Philadelphia, raising concerns about Healy.
Coyne had become or perhaps saw himself as an unofficial spokesperson for the University of Toronto in the Healy Affair in 2001 – a scandal precipitated by the possibly self-styled Boss of Bosses, Charlie Nemeroff leaning on the University to get rid of Healy. JC spent years afterwards ranting and raving to anyone who would listen about Healy’s conflicts of interest, lack of academic heft, and general sliminess. But he didn’t turn up to debates that were scheduled and wouldn’t engage on the issues.
Why Dave Nutt – who ironically since has ended up being seen by many as a hero of free speech – wanted to do me in is something I’ve never gotten to the bottom of. We used to get on relatively well. I tried to make contact afterwards – but nothing doing.
The entire correspondence between me and the GMC and documents obtained from Dave Nutt and Guy Goodwin under Freedom of Information is posted on HealyProzac.com/academicstalking.
The GMC closed that investigation with memorable words – that this contretemps is just the kind of thing that academics get up to.
This response rather fits initial official responses to claims of harassment in the Harris, Saville, Clifford and other cases. This is “just the kind of thing that happens”.
Academics being academics or harassment?
What I suppressed at the time was that James Coyne, whose claims were at the centre of the case 8 years ago, had been arraigned for serious physical abuse of a partner and had a record of intimidation. In fact the correspondence I have suggests the University he had been with before the University of Pennsylvania had moved him on in a manner rather like the Catholic Church moving a priest in trouble on from one setting to another. I can provide all details.
Many people who had encounters with him, particularly women, thought about and in some cases put in place bodyguards.
He was later, it would seem, let go by the University of Pennsylvania. It is difficult to penetrate what finally happened as U Penn are concerned to safeguard Dr Coyne’s rights but whatever happened followed well-supported allegations of serious harassment of a research colleague.
The GMC could have done something to prevent this but I guess “we weren’t to know”.
I had input to the Coyne U Penn case but none to the Nutt and Goodwin issues below.
Drs Nutt and Goodwin featured on a Panorama expose of the ties between UK academics and pharmaceutical companies earlier this year. Drs Nutt and Goodwin have since been assured they have the full support of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Shelley Jofre, who made the program, in contrast, who has done more for the cause of access to clinical trial data, possibly the most important ethical and moral issue in medicine of our day, than the BMJ, AllTrials or anyone else, found that shortly after the program was broadcast, Panorama announced its intention to make her redundant.
The issues we are dealing with would appear to be of some moment.
Stepping up to the plate
It will do no-one any good if the GMC terminate this case with words as pat as they used the last time around. What can be done to prevent that?
It will do no-one any good if something good cannot be brought out of this mess. What can we do to achieve that?
If I refuse to engage further in the process, this will damage me in the short term. Putting the key evidence over the next few weeks into the public domain, and drawing as much attention to what has happened as possible, might damage me even further.
In any reasonable universe, given GMC have no procedure to cover this situation – or how to handle doctors who have their articles ghost-written or company doctors who lie about the risks of treatment, who compared with Harold Shipman injure and kill people on an industrial scale – this has to be the right thing to do, although this might only be obvious retrospectively. It seems doubly warranted if we are not operating in a reasonable universe.
There are risks to embarking on this course of action. Let me make clear where the course is directed. I, and almost everyone else I work with here, would like to know exactly what is and has been going on in the mental health and wider services here. It is simply not possible to know how to keep people safe if we cannot orient ourselves within the currents flowing through the system.
This is not about legal actions or being punitive. It is about truth first without which there is no possibility of reconciliation.
Doctor Who
Making the material public, there can always be the hope that someone within Betsi, perhaps Dr Birch who in the past has talked about the need to put patient interests before those of the organization, or Professor Purt who is new to all this, will engage. It’s over three months since anyone within Betsi has engaged.
At present, by doing what they have done, BCUHB (Betsi) have enjoined themselves and GMC in several very high profile criminal and other legal cases and academic issues. I will be putting up timelines soon that hint at many possible stories. Perhaps not the right story. Goodness knows what kind of story once pharmaceutical company lawyers, public relations agencies and science consultancy groups get their hands on it.
It might be argued that I am compromising Betsi and the GMC, but this goes to the heart of the dilemma. I would have to presume myself guilty and put the interests of BCUHB and GMC over those of patient safety to warrant taking that approach. In the current circumstance, this is not what Good Medical Practice looks like to me (or my colleagues).
So for those following the Murder Mystery – Who is Doctor Who?
Keep one eye on the names Higgo, Makin, and Harborne, and the other….
Eight years after the Healy-Toronto Affair, at an ACNP meeting in Arizona, after much hunting I was gifted a hand-shake opportunity with the Boss of Bosses, Charlie Nemeroff. He scuttled away.
Before that at the same meeting, which was two years after my last referral to the GMC, while absorbed in playing Where’s Charlie, I ran smack into James Coyne. JC was a smallish guy who fell over himself to paint himself as my new best friend, pointing to our shared Irish roots and the very many positions we have in common.
(Strangely we do, it seems, have views in common).
The names all sound familiar to me 🙂
I was thinking of writing a blog post about people’s apathy – this post has refueled my interest in writing such a blog.
As far as I can see, the GMC are in the business of making a name for themselves, nothing more, nothing less.
As for Higgo, Makin and Coyne, they may have a lack of authority in their own homes, hence the need to seek conflict in the workplace…just an observation by me.
Shame about Shelley, she will, no doubt, bounce back. The BBC’s loss is her gain.
This is chilling stuff. It seems to me that these individuals and institutions that behave with ruthless disrespect for the truth can get away with it because people tend to dismiss what the whistleblower says as being implausible.
I am somewhat confused, Dr. Healy. You say:
” Let me make clear where the course is directed. I, and almost everyone else I work with here, would like to know exactly what is and has been going on in the mental health and wider services here. It is simply not possible to know how to keep people safe if we cannot orient ourselves within the currents flowing through the system.”
I was under the impression that you had a fairly accurate picture of what is putting people at risk where you work. By saying you need to “orient yourselves within the currents flowing through the system”, I wonder if you mean that you have to provide solid evidence for what you seem to have already said, you suspect?
Are you seeking to attain credibility from Betsi and the GMC as a means to push them towards long overdue, appropriate action against harassment and persecution of those who are truly committed to safe medical practices?
I will continue reading– maybe you are writing the next post that will answer my questions…
I noticed Sinead’s comment on untrained staff and academic nurses, now from experience in working in a general hospital ALL staff are trained in basic nursing skills. Some healthcare assistants will be trained to do extra certain tasks depending on what ward they are working on, they can be trained to take E.C.G’S or bladder scans e.t.c. e.t.c. they are NOT unqualified to carry out those tasks, they are trained to do it. The reason for this is because the wards are normally understaffed and it is to help the nurses to free them up to do other things, most nurses I worked with respected the healthcare assistants and were very happy for that extra help. At least half of the health care assistants would then go on to do their nurse training.
The other thing I noticed is that some nurses are too qualified to the point they do not want to do ward work, they are only interested in furthering their career and getting into management. These are the people that most staff did not like working with. You could also say what is the point in doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists if you have academic nurses.
I am defending Healthcare assistants because they are trained, hard working members of staff who are just as important as any other staff they are the ones who spend most time with the patients. How many academic nurses do you see bathing, feeding and looking after a patient and that is what nursing is about too.
Please don’t undervalue Health Care Assistants, all staff are valuable and important.
Anne- Marie,
I completely agree with the points you are making about Health Care assistants. I took issue with nurses who “do not want to do ward work” when I worked as a nursing assistant and after I graduated –. Doing hands- on patient care is what I was most interested in, and continue to be focused on. Those of us nurses who have this focus, work alongside and value Health Care assistants are in the minority.
On a psychiatric ward there are patients who need much more than a nurse who administers meds and interviews them to assess their mental status and risk for self harm. Patients with complex medical issues are admitted to units with certified nursing assistants (CNAs are what they are called now), on a regular psych ward there are mental health counselors (MHCs) with no skills for direct *care* of patients, and various levels of any sort of after high school education or experience with people suffering severe mental states. When nurses have 6-8 patients, the disparity in ability to meet the care needs of patients in crisis is a recipe for an *unsafe unit*.
Unit managers CAN foster a culture on these units that actually encourages the MHCs to disrespect the RNs. Management CAN reward MHCs who make complaints against nurses- and then focusing on the RNs who are problematic for their management goals, make these complaints cause for disciplinary action, in a a manner that basically finds the RN guilty without any debriefing to determine what exactly transpired to warrant a complaint.
Of course there are legitimate complaints– I do not mean to imply that nurses, or any licensed mental health professionals are above reproach. The means for creating the fast track to employment termination is the issue. When it begins to be noticed WHO amongst the *higher cost* staff are being shown the door in a very unprofessional manner.
Dedicated CNAs and MHCs who advocate for patients, or come to the defense of a nurse who disappears from the ward under circumstances that are speculated about via gossip, can and do also become targets for management as well.
In this *new* work environment that is known and literally felt to be *absolute power of management*– even to the point of disregarding even the pretense of staff supervision and conflict resolution, or investigation of a POVA complaint; when this becomes the tone on a psych ward, it changes the therapeutic milieu into a jungle– and yes, the patients suffer most, but so do those who are the most concerned about their care, safety and well being–
This is the current level of crisis– the current state of risk for patients on most psych wards, to receive more drugs and less care/treatment. Given the financial gain incentive of for profit psych wards, it cannot be ignored that both the best qualified and the longest tenured staff nurses seem to disappear first. It goes without saying that nurses in this business model system, who are vocal about the adverse effects of psych drugs will not last very long–
What is harder to explain is this SAME management style in academic medical setting- psych units, where financial profit should definitely NOT be motive–
Having experienced the corrupt academic- setting psych unit management before the easier to explain- for profit business mind set, I am all the more interested in DR. Healy’s adventures.
There seems to be MORE going on– more than pharmaceutical money being pumped into academic medical centers, who give credence to bogus clinical trials and invent psychiatric illnesses to create larger markets for psych drugs– MAYBE,incentives for the creation and perpetuation of psych ward management to weed out the very staff that once were sought by them?; once hired to give credence to the concept of *academic medicine*, and now seen as somehow threatening to the academic medical institution itself.
Patients are at risk for fatality– actually patients have died on psych wards where investigations prove out the disparity between qualified staff, adequate staffing AND the model of care *advertised*– or the standards of care set forth by psychiatric medical boards . The promotion of safe/quality care for patient’s is the commonality for all psych wards– BUT the management style has clearly become a sledge hammer that all but makes this *slogan* impossible–.
It is more a mystery where Dr.Healy sits– but from my perspective, psych units in academic medical centers were the *inventors* of this management style– and for reasons that absolutely must become public knowledge!
Professor Healy should be getting a medal as big as a dinner plate in my eyes instead he is harassed and persecuted because big organisations want him to shut up.
I speak from personal experience my family are going through hell because of what SSRI withdrawal did to my son.
David Healy uses his knowledge and scientific expertise for the good of people, perhaps he should use it instead to invent pills that change chemicals in the brain to make you feel drunk. If it wasn’t true it would be laughable.
I shake my head in disbelief.
Since I don’t have an academic background, to me, their “brawls” inbetween themselves seems to drag on forever.
The truth that I so desperately need to come out, becomes hidden behind academic argueing. And I know only one side of this who benefits from it.
Could it be possible they also want to drag it on further?
Every day that dr. Healy has to fend for himself against attacks or allegations, is a day lost of his efforts to bring awareness of sideeffects and the need for transparency in pharmacology.
If such transparancy and awareness were to be achieved, I would benefit from that. There you go, I’m biased.
Biased towards dr. Healy.
But I have also lived the truth he speaks off, 17 years of SSRI.
Shaky bottom…?
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/management-prefer-didn-t-know-075840753.html
Have a heart, Andrew.
Thank you Billiam James.
http://www.billiamjames.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/HeartOfMedicine700.jpg
Manage the damage.