Friday Funny: What goes on inside a doctor's head and a double dose of TED

2013-05-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

What goes on inside a doctor's head

learning to accept what is can hurt like hell

2013-05-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

I have never transcended any difficulty, or resolved any crisis "all by myself." Life is large in ways that is very difficult to accept at times. There are things that I have come to believe are my responsibility to rectify; in as much as I am able. I cannot do it alone, and I cannot fail to do everything in my power. There are ugly truths that I have been choking on. I've been choking back tears of frustration and outrage; choking back words I long to say, scream, shout. Every instinct, awareness and belief I hold dear tells me that what I am faced with is unacceptable. How I feel about virtually every aspect of reality has been forever altered over the last three years. I believe it's better to know the truth. Nonetheless, reality can have a real bite, that can fucking hurt like hell. What I believe, what I know that is right, good and real is unchanged; but my every day reality taking care of my disabled son, is evidence that what I once believed about people in general, what I once believed about justice; what I once believed about the law, and what I once believed about my country itself, had little, if any resemblance to reality as I experience it today. Truth, Justice and 'The American Way' was just marketing, a catchy slogan for Saturday morning cartoons. Propaganda fed like pablum to the masses; and not based on reality as I know it at all...

Honor, integrity and living by ethical principles are not necessities for some---not having these qualities appears to be no impediment to achieving financial, social, political and/or professional success. I know down in my marrow that living by these principles matters; that's enough. There are people who seem to have no difficulty achieving success without them. It is not admirable. I don't envy or pity them. I only wish they had no power to harm my precious son--Still, I wish this; even though wishing for anything was left behind with my shattered illusions. I know that truth, integrity, honor and justice should be guiding principles in the social service and the Justice systems in the United States of America; I'm devastated to know that these principles are not even paid lip-service sometimes...

One more time, and it likely will not be the last, I tell myself to:

I miss my Dad so very much when I feel like this...

first posted 10-20-2011 updated 5-14-2013

Remember Dan Markingson and his mother, Mary Weiss

2013-05-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

Today is the 9th anniversary of Dan Markingson's death. My thoughts are with his mother, Mary Weiss.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

Agatha Christie

via The Star Tribune:

Dan Markingson's Mother Replies to University of Minnesota VP Mulcahy

Posted by: Bill Gleason under Society, Crime, Violence, Disasters, Education and literacy, Continuing education,Government, Politics Updated: March 3, 2011 - 8:19 AM

Weeping Angel

Part of mausoleum of canon Guilain Lucas (1628)

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Dr. Mulcahy's original letter appeared in the Minnesota Daily . I'd encourage interested readers to read it as well as my own comments at the end of the article. With the permission of Mary Weiss, I here reprint her letter. It should receive widespread attention in the community. Steps should be taken, including an independent investigation, to assure that such incidents do not occur in the future. To argue that what happened is not illegal is a far cry from the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.

Mary Weiss writes in today's Daily :

I am Mary Weiss, mother of Dan Markingson, who died while in a University of Minnesota clinical drug study.

In a Feb. 24 letter to the editor published in the Minnesota Daily, “The Markingson case deserves better from the Daily,” R. Timothy Mulcahy, vice president for research at the University, states, among other things, that the University did not profit from the study in which Dan died.

So, this study was revenue neutral? Does the University not profit from their clinical drug research? Who would possibly believe this?

Mulcahy states non-University psychiatrists found no wrongdoing. Of course they found no wrongdoing: These psychiatrists were paid to find no wrongdoing by virtue of the fact that they were “expert witnesses” for the University. Other medial professionals have since disagreed with this
assessment.

Dr. Harrison G. Pope, Jr., professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said about the study, “There is virtually no evidence that this vulnerable, severely psychotic and mentally incompetent patient was capable of understanding the study to which he was consenting.”

Or take the statement of James I. Hudson, also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, who summed up his professional opinion of the doctor who conducted the study, saying, “Dr. [Stephen] Olson’s errors, omissions, improper acts and failures were to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, a substantial contributing factor and a proximate cause of Mr. Markingson’s death.”

Dr. Keith A. Horton, licensed psychiatrist in the state of Minnesota, said in his expert testimony, “It is my opinion that this case represents a violation of biomedical standards upon which there is a widespread consensus for informed consent and human subjects’ protection.”

Mulcahy states also in his article, “The University is steadfast in its commitment to the protection of all research subjects.”

If this had been the case, “Dan’s Law” — which was passed unanimously in both the Minnesota House and Senate in 2009 — would have been entirely unnecessary.

This law now prevents anyone on a stay of civil commitment from entering a psychiatric clinical drug study and also prohibits any doctor from putting his or her own patients into his or her own clinical drug study.

Also, Mulcahy states that “proper care was provided” to Dan. I don’t think many people would consider it “proper care” when on April 9, 2004, Easter Sunday — less than a month before he died — Dan was psychotic, and I, his distraught mother, left voice messages for Olson and also Jeanne Kenney, the study’s coordinator.

I said, “Do we have to wait for him to kill himself or someone else before anyone does anything?” thinking for sure someone would call me back in the morning and re-hospitalize Dan.

Unbelievably, no one responded — though Kenney did write my message verbatim in her study file. Evidently, the outcome of the study was more important than making a patient well or keeping him alive.

Also, Mulcahy states that no laws were violated by the University. In fact, the University was given immunity by a Hennepin County judge who cited the Minnesota law which states “[Minnesota] and its employees are not liable for … a loss caused by the performance or failure to perform a discretionary duty.”

Horton also said, “It is my opinion that no university or medical center should tolerate or condone the improper, coercive, unethical practices documented in the case of Dan Markingson. Correction measures should be instituted to prevent future injuries to vulnerable patients.”

But no correction measures have been taken. And the University still tolerates and condones improper, coercive, unethical practices.

What is it going to take for them to change? I really don’t know. Hopefully not the death of another parent’s precious child.

No laws have been broken? And the angels wept.

Involuntary Transformation

Friday Funny: What goes on inside a doctor's head and a double dose of TED

What goes on inside a doctor's head

learning to accept what is can hurt like hell

Remember Dan Markingson and his mother, Mary Weiss

Dan Markingson's Mother Replies to University of Minnesota VP Mulcahy