Bullying remains a serious and mismanaged problem in the health profession and governments and some (immature) Australian specialist medical colleges writes Dr Leong Ng and Dr Helen Tsigounis.
"If you tell a lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
~ Source unknown (often misattributed to Dr Joseph Goebells)
Although Australia is said to be a democratic nation, the reality reveals something else.
There is set in place a system of warring governments with supreme power given to a select few – simulating an oligarchy – a contemporaneous window of which is for display with both state and federal politics.
As absolute power corrupts absolutely, unopposed corrupt conduct has been bred and condoned, placing others in the system and the public at risk and even giving rise to alleged and real human rights abuses.
Bullying has been identified and exists to varying degrees within the medical fraternity. It is generally not discussed much in public till the past decade or so.
Bullying is discrimination, like a psychological sexual assault, linked to oligarchic plutocracies and to the crass and disturbing evolution of these.
Bullying remains a serious and mismanaged problem in the health profession as in (immature) governments and some (immature) Australian specialist medical colleges.
The knowledge of its existence undermines both the public’s and the profession’s confidence in the system.
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Inc ‒ and others ‒ acknowledges that bullying is unacceptable and is an important cause of workforce attrition and other morbidity, but does not have the lawful authority or jurisdiction to deal with it. Some bureaucrats have variously attempted to legitimised bullying by calling it part of a ‘management process.’
Whether or not it is “management”, bullying is a thriving phenomenon today.Targeting and bullying of doctors by the colleges and Medical Boards have intent at career destruction of the victim, no matter at what stage of their careers (also known as Boys-Club or political attacks).
Recent examples are that of Dr Paddy Dewan, ourselves, Dr Helen Tsigounis (pictured right) and Dr Leong Ng. There are many more quiet sufferers — past and present.
For reasons of various due processes taking place with the above cases, we cannot discuss these cases for now suffice to state that the factual information linked are in both the public and private domains.
For one group (like ourselves), the scenario begins by college or medical board solicitation of or full reliance on complaints against the intended victim either by bullying other doctors to do so or by coercing them in various ways.
These phantom (non-patient) complaints are almost always false or trivial and mostly taken out of context.
Other perpetrators even complain using patients’ names and initials — fabricating complaints and purporting to ‘advocate’ for patients. This in itself is allegedly criminal.
The medical board machinery adheres to a biased (adversarial) procedure when dealing with the issues with no regard to the concepts of natural justice or procedural fairness.
In its most florid form, this process often involves “political psychiatry” or “political psychology” where these disciplines of medicine are abused and a “hired-gun” (i.e. board-appointed) psychiatrist/psychologist makes a false and baseless assessment or diagnosis aimed to formally disparage the victim.
This then paves the way for official “lawful” denigration — i.e. bullying and defamation.
Oppressive conditions (especially psychiatric or performance ones) with reprimands may thereafter be placed on the doctor’s registration if they are not formally deregistered by the medical boards.
Worse of all, phone calls (and emails) are circulated amongst the old boy network which are never recorded. This hearsay is in the minds of the perpetrators who also sit in positions of administrative power in hospital or medical boards. The network ensures that chances of professional survival become minimal.
The process of bullying may then extend into the legal system where, in most cases, there is a deviation from the rule of law giving rise to further alleged human rights abuses. The victim becomes psychologically falsely imprisoned and the destruction is usually complete with no open door left for the justice.
This is no different from how some Australians have treated (and are treating) the Indigenous peoples following their colonisation.
On the other hand and for another group, doctors who are part of the so called “Old Boy’s Club” are protected by the medical boards (or more accurately, some influential college members sitting in boards) and serious concerns may be ignored or even buried.
It appears that there is a different set of rules.
Along the similar lines, these members can also launch attacks including mob attacks using the veils of incorporation of the club(s).
Professor Paddy Dewan (Image via theweeklyrevieweastern.com.au)
State medical boards (and now AHPRA) and long standing politicised-credos of "protecting the public" are not balanced by a truthful public revelation of their hand in glove "protecting (and selectively attacking)” some members of the profession.
If members in trusted professions (especially priests and doctors) do not embrace and respect personal integrity (that which had been long taught by Hippocrates), the traditional societal trust immediately evaporates — and it should if these areas of public interest are not fixed soon.
Should there be specific legislation to harshly punish professional and intellectual dishonesty, as enshrined in the Medical Acts of many other countries?
We would state in the affirmative.
The nation’s health in medical administration is not good. Medical Boards are being challenged and attacked for alleged corrupt practices — especially in QLD, NSW and VIC.
Independent reviews of the medical board and specialist colleges functions of wider scope may need to become the order of the day with more serious issues surfacing regularly.
For example, the current (limited scope) Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry submissions and public inquiry interviews by Jennifer Morris and Dr Paddy Dewan openly set out the current agenda for national reform together with the QLD Health Minister of Health, Mr Springborg’s pioneering actions i.e. the passing of the new Health Ombudsman’s Bill 2013.
Although outwardly appealing to the public, we too express concerns about the Bill giving too much power to the Ombudsman and ultimately to the Health Minister – and even the Attorney General ‒ with the new current laws in QLD. We fervently hope it will be debated and refined before it becomes law.
Newsworthy is a recent QLD Health and Quality Complaints Commission (HQCC) annual report of concern in Queensland.
It independently and indirectly raises concerns about the performance of the Queensland Medical Board whilst Jo Barber and ex QLD MP Rob Messenger (who had also assisted whistle blower Toni Hoffman in a much publicised attack on Patel in 2004), had made Public Interest Disclosures implicating poor performance by the QMB in 2012 — resulting in the Chesterman and then, the Forrester Reports.
However, of immediate public interest is the Dr Patel debacle which continues to unfold.
(In Part 2, by Dr Leong Ng, the discussion will be some subtle aspects of the Dr Patel debacle.)
