Chris' Lounge

I would like to commend our firefighting efforts and thank our leaders all the way up to and including the national level, for providing support to our State of CA.

My personal judgments about him are majoritavely negative. In light of public scrutiny, I think he is rightfully being scrutinized.

It is very likely that he uses his credentials to brainwash many young male patients into accepting mental servitude to him. My suspicions were so long ago. He can thereby engage in "perpetual treatment". I see the potential for people who are not even ill, to be deemed so, for his benefit, under cover of non-profit org. status.

This was my suspicion and it has been confirmed today one step further, that families are reportedly convinced to will their possessions to his organization, bypassing their child as rightful heir.

In my opinion, he has, and is capitalizing on vulnerable people or those in compromised familial and/or financial situations. Does a cardiologist monitor a heart patient who is medicated for un-necessarily extended periods of time? Should doctors be prescribing antibiotics to a patient whose cold has long ago subsided? Of course not. That is the key to this problem. Get them on meds and trust that they’ll continue. The rest is in the hands of the law if a crime takes place.

Adult patients have adult rights. If they do not want his treatment, I believe participation cannot and should not be lawfully imposed.

Unfortunately, in the case of the Virginia Tech. assassin and others like him (who by the way fall into a minority of far less than 1% of the population), treatment or some kind of issue resolution is needed when warning signs are there. By the same measure, if you’re hearing voices not there, that is unpleasant… see a doctor.

Many have testified to the shooter’s antisocial behavior long in advance of the killings. If he had stated his concerns to the proper people, he could have taken initiative for his own emotional and behavioral problems. And conversely, others should have talked to him.

He was not of right mind-obviously.

A father of a patient under "Dr. Rick’s" care suggested (unrelated to the V.Tech sit.) that the clinic prevented what he saw as his own son’s potential life of troubles. In his particular case, that may be so. But what price is he being asked to pay under threat of otherwise being left in the street to fend for himself, unable to buy a home or pay rent in an overpriced area as ours.

As health insurance is offered to more people, I believe these individuals will not be as susceptible to this kind of servitude that appears to be going on at the two organizations which "Dr. Rick" run. Gross manipulations and violations occur there all the while supported by some families. 

Adults can alternatively seek out their own psychiatric care of choice. CA state can be a leader in this and I think we’re ready for it and want it. We certainly deserve it. Personal choice is after-all what makes a person change, whether seeking medication or not. And certain protections must be in place, most notably financial assistance to the residents and access to resources beyond his organization. He has a sick desire to run a family other than his own.

Minors are particularly vulnerable to being dumped by parents into this organization. I’m not exactly sure what the law can do for them.

For more acute situations, court mandated, I believe that Psychiatric hospitals are appropriate, run in accordance with good practice, and the individual should be released after time fitting to the patient’s needs, with the goal being doctor visits as needed.

I have received more articles concerning this particular man today, so I will read them tonight.