When yoga teacher Liz fell down a flight of stairs while moving a mattress and injured her foot, she had no idea that multiple misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis would cause her years of medical gaslighting and chronic pain.  Liz’s health care experience is littered with story after story of incredible incompetence, false accusations and patient blaming. 

With a few exceptions, most of us are raised to believe that our health care systems are looking out for our best interests, that they are self correcting institutions that prioritize patient safety. In reality, the health care system has morphed into a system that prioritizes and protects the status quo of physicians as god-like entities that can do no wrong. And unless you’ve experienced medical harm, neglect or gaslighting from the health care system it is hard to fathom that a strong element of the ‘helping’ profession is really about helping themselves.

This is evidenced by the alliance of physicians with lawyers to protect doctors when they harm or kill patients. Those high priced lawyers will try to delay court cases to run up the lawyer fees, essentially bankrupting the injured patient. Or the lawyers use stall and delay tactics in hopes the patient dies before the case goes to trial.

To complete the moat around their elite status, physicians worked the political system to have laws and policies implemented that further protect doctors from accountability.

This further entrenches the medical system as unaccountable for their actions. Yet we only have to consider that medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death to recognize that the doctor / lawyer / politician triumvirate is effectively working to protect a high harm and death rate.

Liz shares the failures of the medical system, and the gem of a physician she found that  has helped improve her quality of life --- a quality needlessly diminished by repeated medical errors.

Connect with Liz Perloff:

Twitter @thepenof 

Website: FromThePenOf.com 

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Premium Patrons get access to video versions of podcasts for $5 / month.

 

Be my Guest

I am always looking for guests to share their medical error experiences so we help bring awareness and make patients safer.

If you are a survivor, a victim’s surviving family member, a health care worker, advocate, researcher or policy maker and you would like to share your experiences, please send me an email with a brief description:  RemediesPodcast@gmail.com 

 

Need a Counsellor?

Like me, many of my clients at Remedies Counseling have experienced the often devastating effects of medical error.

If you need a counsellor for your experience with medical error, or living with a chronic illness(es), I offer online video counseling appointments.

**For my health and life balance, I limit my number of counseling clients.** 

Email me to learn more or book an appointment:  RemediesOnlineCounseling@gmail.com

 

Scott Simpson: 

Counsellor + Patient Advocate + (former) Triathlete

I am a counsellor, patient advocate, and - before I became sick and disabled - a passionate triathlete. Work hard. Train hard. Rest hard.

I have been living with HIV since 1998. I was the first person living with HIV to compete at the triathlon world championships.

Thanks to research and access to medications, HIV is not a problem in my life.

I have been living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) since 2012, and thanks in part to medical error, it is a big problem in my life.

Counseling / Research

I first became aware of the ubiquitousness of medical error during a decade of community based research working with the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University, where I co-authored two research papers on a counseling intervention for people living with HIV, here and here. 

Patient participants would often report varying degrees of medical neglect, error and harms as part of their counseling sessions.

Patient Advocacy

I am co-founder of the ME patient advocacy non-profit Millions Missing Canada, and on the Executive Committee of the Interdisciplinary Canadian Collaborative Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Research Network.

I am also a patient advisor for Health Quality Ontario’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, and member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada.

Medical Error Interviews podcast and vidcast emerged to give voice to victims, witnesses and participants in this hidden epidemic so we can create change toward a safer health care system.

My golden retriever Gladys is a constant source of love and joy. I hope to be well enough again one day to race triathlons again. Or even shovel the snow off the sidewalk.