Title

PC, M.D. : how political correctness is corrupting medicine

Description

Drawing on a wealth of information, much of it never revealed before, PC, M.D. documents for the first time what happens when the tenets of political correctness - including victimology, multiculturalism and the rejection of fixed truths and individual autonomy - are allowed to enter the fortress of medicine. Consider these examples. A professor at the Harvard School of Public Health teaches her students that racial discrimination causes high blood pressure among blacks - an unsubstantiated and dangerous truth". Former psychiatric patients, calling themselves "consumer-survivors," condemn the health care system for violating their human rights. They are on a crusade to "limit the powers of psychiatry by making consumers full partners in diagnosis and treatment".And nurses charge that they are so oppressed by the male-dominated medical system that they can't give their patients optimal care." "The consequences of putting politics before health are far-reaching, argues Satel. It wastes tax-payer money on bogus research and diverts resources that could be used to discover authentic causes of suffering, provide proven therapies, and rigorously investigate new ones. PC, M.D. is a powerful wake-up call to the medical profession and to patients, who are the ultimate victims of these disturbing trends."--BOOK JACKET.

Identifier

959465

465071821

Creator

Satel, Sally L

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

2000

Program air date: July 15, 2001

Publisher

Basic Books

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes from front endpapers: "Tues. 2 p.m. - Serious illness in my 20's. - 1995: started thinking about this when I was at a San Fran. Hospital. - Consumer Survivor Movement. - "Indoctrinologists". - Sally: Staff psychiatrist for superior court in D.C.; staff psychiatrist in Methadone Clinic in N.E. Wash. - College campuses are Ground Zero for the excesses of political correctness. - Victim politics. - 44% of those entering Med school are women; "There is no women's health crisis", p. 128; breast cancer research vs. prostate, Al Gore, p. 109. - Consumer-Survivor Movement, p. 60: '60's liberationists' ethos; ECT: shock therapy. - Protection and advocacy for the Mentally Ill Programs (p. 62), created by Congress in 1986. - Mental Health counts gaining in popularity. - National Alliance for the mentally ill, p. 64. - Center for Mental Health Service (CMHS), federally supported, p. 47. - National Disability Council (p. 49) is presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed. - PBS Special: Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, Christiane Northrup, p. 105. - Psychiatric drugs: what are they? - How involuntary treatment laws are in effect. - Drug user: 1) Boredom - [?], 2) Need a job; PC medicine offers only demoralizing message. - Psychiatrist's job, p. 18: to overthrow competitive meritocracy. - Victim politics: need massive social reforms to close he power gap." - Notes from half title page: "American Public Health Association opposed to aid to Contras, against war in Middle East, want a nuclear free world, stymied welfare reform. - PC medicine emphasizes the correlation between health and wealth. - Can racism make you sick? (p. 23) - Nancy Krieger and Stephen Sidney study pub. in Wash Post, National Public R. - Brent Staples in NYT. - Sisterhood and medicine - breast cancer vs. prostrate - How much research? - Nursing grudge: TT - therapeutic touches (p. 77) - some call it quackery; energy field disturbance: a diagnosis; a fiery resentment of the medical establishment." - Notes from back endpapers: "Therapy for Victims: Maine: Melodie Peet, commission of mental retardation - oppression therapists bring politics to the couch; psych. troubles come from living in racist / sexist society, p. 193. - Portland Conference in 1998 - safe rooms, turn beepers off: self-injury (p. 202); multi-cultural counseling - defining element, instillation of race consciousness. - Alvin Poussaint: a racist individual is mentally ill; Colin Ferguson - schizophrenic - psychotic about whites; Timothy McVeigh: not psychotic; John Rocker: made to undergo psychiatric exam, implying anyone using bigoted language is mentally ill. - Harvard's admission standards: 1976 Dr. Davis, p. 183. - Race and medicine: rates of admission to Med School. - Do we like to be treated by our own races? - "Cultural competence" of our physicians, p. 173. - Organ donations - which race gives more? - Patient's attitude toward illness. - Consumer survivors. - Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932-1972." -- Annotations by Brian Lamb in the margins and underlining of pertinent phrases throughout the book. - Examples: p. 7: "4 areas of public health: 1) sanitation 2) biological 3) life style 4) politically correct medicine "counterfeit" - "indoctrinologists" . - p. 64/65: Consumer-survivors also lobby strenuously against extending insurance coverage, including Medicare and Medicaid, to hospitals that care for involuntarily committed patients. ... Radical consumer-survivors can be counted on to reject virtually any good idea that NAMI favors." - p. 126: "For decades, women have been alternatively ignored or overprotected. And the research hierarchy is still largely dominated by the interests and concerns of white males." - p. 166: "African American patients are less trustful that they will be well cared for.." - p. 171: ..."black patients in need of a transplant wait longer owing to factors such as blood type, sensitization and some antigens." - p. 191: "First, minority representation in medical schools remains well below their representation in the general population, despite aggressive admission policies. Second, minority recruitment has resulted in a two-tiered system of academic standards for admission. ... Third, we lack compelling evidence that same-race (minority) doctor-patient relationships result in better patient outcomes."

Subject

"Medical care--United States--Miscellanea."

"Political correctness--United States."

"Social medicine--United States."

"Sociology, Medical--United States."

"Attitude of Health Personnel--United States."

"Politics--United States."

"Prejudice--United States."

"Quality of Health Care--trends--United States."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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