Medical Error Interviews

Dr Simon Breidert: How Post Finasteride Syndrome changed his view of his specialty: psychosomatic medicine

When Dr Simon Breidert tried to discontinue use of the hair growth medication Finasteride, he experienced a myriad of very disturbing and disabling symptoms in multiple body systems.

But the medical system doesn’t recognize Post Finasteride Syndrome and has labeled any one who says they experience those symptoms as hysterical. Dr Breidert was now confronted by his own profession’s deeply embedded medical bias. Simon was experiencing horrible physical symptoms, but the health care system had already decided his diagnosis is psychosomatic. Talk about major cognitive dissonance. Simon had to reconcile years of medical education that psychologizes everything it does not yet understand, with his own body’s experience.

Simon and I talk about how his body broke down, his hellish health care journey and the strategies he employs to manage Post Finasteride Syndrome. Simon also shares what he now thinks of the medical system, psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine, and how he’s leveraging the trauma of serious illness and medical marginalization and gaslighting, into growth by founding the charity PFS Research.

Connect with Dr Simon Breidert

https://twitter.com/simonbreidert

https://www.pfsresearch.org/

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

 

Shirley Barker, RN: Witnessing a police sheriff’s death by physician -- and telling the truth

It is an open secret that hospitals’ standard of practice is to deny, diminish or cover up their medical errors. When they occur, there is often immense pressure from hospital administrators on employees to conform to a narrative that protects the hospital. The employee may feel that their job and career are in jeopardy, and they may feel peer pressure to ‘not rock the boat’ and protect their health care colleagues.

Nurse Shirley Barker found herself in exactly that pressure cooker when a police sheriff who was shot multiple times in a high profile shoot out ended up under Shirley’s care. Although seriously injured, the next day he was recovering and his family was in the waiting room while the doctor examined him. The physician asked Shirley to administer a medication, but she refused because of safety concerns. The physician himself then injected the medication -- and immediately the sheriff’s vital signs dropped and Shirley witnessed his death...by physician.

In our interview Shirley shares the highly pressured experience of being a hospital’s employee and a key witness in a court case about a medical death in that hospital. Shirley also shares how her father’s death involved medical error and how these cumulative experiences have impacted her life’s path.

Connect with Shirley Barker:

Facebook.com/Wellness-Island

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Dana Parish: Co-author of Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic

Medicine is so messed up. It has been fatally bitten by its own dogma. 

When singer-songwriter Dana Parish suddenly got very sick, she quickly had a correct diagnosis of Lyme disease and was given the standard antibiotic treatment. But Dana never fully recovered and eventually ended up in heart failure.

Dana saw many top doctors in New York and they all missed the ongoing underlying infection that would lead to Dana’s heart failure. None of these physicians could wrap their heads around the idea that Dana had been under treated for Lyme disease and it was causing her impending death.

Like other medically marginalized and discriminated diseases, chronic Lyme infection has been maligned and neglected by the very system that purports to provide medical care. This reflects the heart of the problem with our health care: entrenched discriminatory dogma in a closed system.

Eventually Dana found Dr Steven Phillips, who was already an internationally renowned physician specializing in complex, chronic diseases when he became a patient himself. After nearly dying from his own mystery illness, he experienced firsthand the medical community’s ignorance about the pathogens that underlie a deep spectrum of serious conditions—from fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and myalgic encephalomyelitis (MEcfs) to depression, anxiety, OCD and neurodegenerative disorders.

In their book Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic, Dana and Dr Phillips explore the science behind common infections that are difficult to diagnose and treat and debunk widely held false beliefs by doctors that keep patients chronically sick.

With the Covid pandemic still going parabolic, and the number of Long Covid patients with chronic autoimmune symptoms also skyrocketing, their book could not be more timely.

Connect with Dana Parish:

Thechronicbook.com

Facebook.com/thechronicbook

Twitter @Lymebook

IG: Instagram.com/thechronicbook

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Denise Crawley: To err is human: A nurse shares her medical errors and how the system responded

When nurse Denise Crawley connected with me about sharing her experiences with her own medical errors in the workplace, I thought it was a great opportunity to hear from a health care worker from their side and perspective of medical errors.

As Denise states, there is a big problem with how the health care system responds to medical error, especially how systemic contributors to medical error are rarely addressed, and how the response tends to focus on individual blame. This in turn fosters a medical culture of cover up, denial and fear. 

With medical error being the 3rd leading cause of death for many decades, it is self evident that the current process of dealing with medical mistakes is fatally flawed. 

Denise refers to it as the Swiss Cheese model of how medical errors manifest in that within the various layers of healthcare, there are holes in each layer, and when these holes line up, medical harm and death can happen.

While we often think of medical trauma exclusive to the patient, as Denise shares, health care workers can be traumatized by participating or witnessing or covering up medical errors. Denise has had to deal with the trauma, and as you’ll hear, is experiencing post traumatic growth.

Connect with Denise Crawley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denise.elaine0218

Twitter: https://twitter.com/denisecrawley

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Maya Dusenbery: Author of "Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick"

When author Maya Dusenbery started to experience pain after a viral infection, she was introduced to a medical system that mostly marginalizes women and dismisses diseases that predominantly affect women. 

This of course will come as no surprise to any female that has a disease the medical system does not readily recognize. If that disease doesn’t have a biomarker yet, doctors will often attribute women’s physical symptoms as psychological in origin. This is known as medical gaslighting and its origins can be traced back to the cocaine fueled thinking of Sigmund Freud and beyond.

In spite of medicine and research claiming to be self correcting institutions, Maya lays out the problems embedded in research, diagnosis and treatment and identifies 2 cracks - or what Maya calls ‘gaps’ - in the health care system: A knowledge gap and a trust gap, and the feedback loop that sustains them.

In this interview, we unpack Maya’s experience with the health care system and why it prompted her to take a deep dive into exposing the systemic gaps in women’s access to appropriate research data and treatment protocols.

Connect with Maya Dusenbery

https://www.mayadusenbery.com/

https://twitter.com/mayadusenbery

Buy Maya’s book on Amazon

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

 

Anton for Holger Klintenberg: #HelpHolgerNow: “We’re fighting for his life” against the medical system

“We’re living in a horror movie” says Anton, speaking for his brother Holger who is so severely sick that he cannot eat or drink and has to be tube fed. Yet the Swedish medical system thinks Holger has a psychiatric disorder and has threatened to have him forcibly committed to an institution against his wishes. 

If the medical system succeeds, it will probably kill Holger. 

Anton, and the rest of Holger’s family, are fighting a medical system that does not recognize or understand the disease myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME. Holger’s family have started a public campaign including social media to #HelpHolgerNow to save him from a torturous death at the hands of the medical system.

I interviewed Anton about Holger on December 21st --- subsequently Anton emailed me this message about their medical system: 

“the police report was regarding them tricking Holger to the psychiatric ward in the beginning of December.

IVO is the healthcare inspektion authority. We are working on a new report to them covering a bigger picture with all the things that happened this fall, the psychiatric ward in the beginning of December...and also their threat of forced institutionalization.

Holger has been denied to seek a doctor of his own choice because he lives in the care home. But our lawyer says that that is not legal. So we are now trying to find a doctor we can trust and do not deny ME. We know who we want and hope she says yes.

We have not accepted the healthcare director's reply and asked him to invite us to a meeting and also give us an informed answer because he obviously isn't aware of the details. He is now questioned already by IVO because of the region's handling of Covid-19 patients. They have failed.”

To follow and support Holger and see if the Swedish medical system tortures and kills him, go to Help Holger Now on Facebook:

#HelpHolgerNow

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpholgernow

(MEpedia entry about Sophia Mirza who had ME and died after being forcibly moved to a psychiatric institution: https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Mirza )

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Sarah Colero: “Owe my life to medical cannabis” -- life with brain surgeries, migraines and opioids

Medical knowledge is embryonic. They are still discovering new body parts. Sometimes medicine doesn’t break new ground, but has to be dragged into the light. 

A case in point is cannabis. The therapeutic value of cannabis has been known for millennia, yet modern medicine vilified the medication, pathologized cannabis users, while the legal system criminalized cannabis patients.

Now we see the global movement making great headway toward decriminalizing and medicalizing cannabis. And as it is with most changes to the medical system, it did not come from within, but from pressure from outsiders, namely patients.

In this episode of Medical Error Interviews, I chat with Sarah Colero who’s debilitating migraines were made worse by opioids, but better by cannabis. 

We unpack Sarah’s experience with multiple brain surgeries and a medical system often intentionally ignorant about the medicinal benefits of cannabis, and her advocacy efforts to bring equity in access for patients that need medicinal cannabis to treat disease and symptoms.

Connect with Sarah Colero:

Twitter:  @Sarah_Colero

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

 

Maija Haavisto: Medical Writer talks about Continuous Medical Trauma and MEcfs and Long Covid (aka post Covid syndrome)

Author and writer Maija Haavisto caught my attention with her article titled ‘Medical Trauma: Gaslighting and Continuous Stress Eating Away at Your Self Worth’. In her writing, Maija accurately captures the consequences of harmful medical experiences I witness in my counseling clients.  As I’ve said elsewhere, medical error and trauma are the unacknowledged pandemics within our health care systems.

Maija grew up in Finland, a healthy child until she got the flu as a teenager and never recovered.  Kicked out of an abusive home at 16 as she struggled with sickness, Maija relied on her writing prowess and carved out a successful career as a journalist and medical writer who has authored 17 books in Finnish.

Along the way, Maija’s health has fluctuated, she eventually got a diagnosis of MEcfs, moved to the Netherlands partly for healthcare reasons in 2010, but she has never been totally healthy again. Of course, having undiagnosed and unrecognized symptoms, and then getting a diagnosis of a medically marginalized disease, means Maija had to have numerous encounters with the health care system. Encounters that more often than not, would be stressful and trauma inducing. 

But Maija has taken her lived experience with the chronic disease MEcfs, and her more recent experience with Long Covid (aka post Covid syndrome), and her encounters with the health care system, and uses those elements to inform her writing. Maija makes the point that medical trauma is different from post traumatic stress. As Maija writes in her article, 

“Another aspect that makes medical trauma particularly pernicious is the way we may be forced to face our abuser and pretend nothing has happened. Even if we manage to cut them off, their pointed comments may stick in our medical files.”

And that’s exactly what distinguishes PTSD from continuous medical trauma.  If you have a complex chronic illness, especially one that is medically marginalized, you probably cannot divorce yourself completely from the health care system to try to protect yourself from further abuse and trauma. You are forced to continue to engage with your traumatizer, both the physician and the health care system -- and that makes medical trauma continuous, and some would say, chronic trauma.

Connect with Maija Haavisto

Twitter: @DiamonDie

Maija’s Medium article:

https://maija-haavisto.medium.com/medical-trauma-6fa90c6ecab0

Website http://www.fiikus.net 

Maya’s CFS/ME book http://www.brokenmarionettebook.com 

YouTube - hypnosis and meditation audios 

https://www.youtube.com/user/diamondie

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Jessica Pin: My labia minora removed without my consent - the pathologization of female sexuality

One of the good things about interviewing people about their medical error experiences is the feel good stories about making the health system safer, and making meaning out of trauma, a phenomenon known as post traumatic growth.

In this interview with Jessica Pin, she shares the insights she’s learned about the gross deficiencies in the medical system where it intentionally maintains blind spots about female anatomy and female sexuality.  A medical system where surgeons are performing procedures on female genitalia with shocking little understanding of the female body.

Jessica, the daughter of a surgeon, recounts her own experience receiving a surgical procedure that she did not consent, and to which the doctor had no understanding or training. This unwarranted surgery would impact Jessica’s intimate relationships, her relationship with her parents, and her relationship with herself.

In her efforts to make meaning out of her medical injury, Jessica sought the support of psychiatrists and therapists -- but she again experienced dismissal, minimization and invalidation. Essentially further harming Jessica as invalidated trauma deepens trauma.

Eventually, through her own efforts and self education about recovering from trauma, Jessica focused her efforts on changing the system to prevent more women from being physically harmed, sexually diminished, and psychologically traumatized.

Connect with Jessica Pin

Twitter @MediClit

https://www.instagram.com/p/CD7VMj2pZ_q/?igshid=163uygx8r1ibq

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.

Jeanne McArdle: My thyroid grew back - “impossible” says the doctor - and other tales of medical gaslighting

When you’ve been sick since a child - as Jeanne McArdle has been - you gain a preternatural insight into the world of medicine and medical care. And if you have a disease unknown or misunderstood by medicine, you get the advantage of being an ‘outsider’ while inside the system. 

Of course, this cuts both ways: having a medically marginalized disease essentially guarantees medical harm, neglect, gaslighting and distrust of doctors.

In this interview with Jeanne McArdle, she recounts the myriad ways physicians have gaslighted her over the years -- at times, this ubiquitous gaslighting from authority figures undermined Jeanne’s own sense of her body and reality.

Even when Jeanne used her Master’s research skills to track and plot the objective biological changes in her body, the evidence was dismissed by doctors.  When Jeanne reported bodily pain, doctors would ignore or minimize it. 

It was not until Jeanne got in front of a doctor that specialized in her symptoms that the gaslighting stopped and the appropriate testing and treatment began. But as Jeanne points out, if the doctor can’t figure out the problem, the patient becomes the problem.

Connect with Jeanne McArdle

Twitter: @JeanneMcArdle

Be a podcast patron

Support Medical Error Interviews on Patreon by becoming a Patron for $2 / month for audio versions. 

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.