Medical Error Interviews

Liz Perloff: Dislocated foot bone missed for years leads to medical gaslighting for years

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 

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.

Daria Oller: Physical Therapist with Long Covid - what she was taught was wrong

When Daria Oller got sick with mild Covid symptoms in mid March, she assumed she’d be back to full health in a week or two.

Now over 7 months later, Daria -- a physical therapist, athletic trainer, runner and dancer -- is still beset with physical symptoms, especially a delayed and dysfunctional response to exercise, known as post exertional malaise - the hallmark symptom of another post viral disease called myalgic encephalomyelitis, or MEcfs. 

Daria is also dealing with cognitive symptoms that makes reading and retaining material a challenge -- this is known as brain fog and also common in MEcfs patients, 

As you’ll hear Daria explain, the physical therapist professionals are mostly uninformed about post exertional malaise -- in reality, exercise is contraindicated for post exertional malaise and people living with MEcfs -- and now this seems to extend to at least some of the Long Covid patients emerging from this pandemic. 

This was not surprising - in fact it was predictable - as it is well known in the viral research community that a significant proportion of people just never recover from viral infections and they develop MEcfs. But the medical community, including other health providers like physical therapists, has been mostly ignorant about MEcfs and this has caused a lot of harm to patients on a global scale.

If there is a silver lining in this pandemic, it is that people like Daria in the health professions who - unfortunately - develop Long Covid cum MEcfs will now have the lived experience of MEcfs symptoms and will be able to provide empathic and appropriate care. Not the gaslighting and harm MEcfs patients have endured for decades -- and many Long Covid patients are also experiencing.

Connect with Daria Oller:

Twitter  @OnTapPhysio

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.

 

MaryAnne Martin-Smith: Given death rites 3 times - how simple surgery went so wrong

Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, it is hard to fathom the cruelty and abuse by some doctors and nurses on sick, vulnerable and dying people. It is hard to reconcile that the ultimate helping professions can have so many people who exhibit truly sadistic and sociopathic behaviour.

To understand how ubiquitous medical abuse and neglect is in our health care systems we only have to look at the recent example in the news of the death of Joyce Echaquan who livestreamed abuse by nurses in the days before she died.

Unfortunately MaryAnne Martin-Smith knows what it feels like to be dying while being medically abused -- perhaps ‘tortured’ is a more accurate description.

MaryAnne went to the hospital for simple back surgery and expected to be out the same day, but without back pain. But what happened to MaryAnne is like something out of a Stephen King novel: a surgeon unwittingly slices open MaryAnne’s arteries causing blood to pour into her abdomen, squishing her organs and causing immense pain -- which nurses and doctors ignore in spite of MaryAnne’s pleading for help.

When the medical staff finally acknowledge MaryAnne is dying, it is one shocking error after another -- the medical staff have to bring MaryAnne back to life 3 times -- not wanting to die alone, MaryAnne begs for the nurse to call her husband -- and the nurse tells MaryAnne to stop being so selfish.

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.

Melinda Maxwell: Craniocervical instability -- decades of suffering before diagnosis

What is the connection between a ‘weak bladder’ in childhood and spine surgery in adulthood?

For Melinda Maxwell, a diagnosis of craniocervical instability (or CCI) provided clarity of that connection after decades of doctors dismissing her symptoms or giving a misdiagnosis.

Craniocervical instability, as its name implies, is essentially a mechanical failure where the head joins the spine causing it to be unstable -- and it can cause a wide range of mysterious and disabling symptoms that are hard for doctors - who mostly work in silos - to connect.

For Melinda, the CCI diagnosis and subsequent surgery has given her a second chance at life. As a licensed Physical Therapist, Melinda has had to question everything she was taught in PT school as those practices can cause more harm than good in people with diseases that are medically marginalized and clinically misunderstood. 

Melinda shares her health care journey to finally getting a diagnosis and proper treatment, and what she’s doing now to prevent more harm to CCI and ME patients from her Physical Therapist colleagues in the future.

Connect with Melinda Maxwell:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/3049027761780369/?ref=share

Post interview note from Melinda:

“One thing I didn’t mention is that I haven’t had to have a tethered cord release yet. Dr. Patel is watching it. Some CCI patients have to have it released after fusion but so far my symptoms aren’t bad enough.”

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.

 

Jonah McGarva: Long Covid - Politically invisibilized and medically gaslighted

Jonah McGarva is one of what will be millions of people around the globe with Long Covid. And many pandemic survivors that develop Long Covid are frustrated by their government’s lack of appropriate response.

Most government health leaders barely mention - or even warn the public - about Long Covid. This is known as political invisibilization. And it works by refusing to acknowledge an issue, or in this instance, a disease. It is reminiscent of the early years of the AIDS pandemic when politicians were silent about death by AIDS. This gave rise to the advocacy chant of “Silence = Death”.

 

The government’s motivation to invisibilize a disease may be based on ignorance or prejudice or to protect and hide their own errors and failings from the public. 

 

Government’s may also be motivated to invisibilize Long Covid to deny disability payments, or to protect corporate insurers from Long Covid claims. Government’s are also notoriously burdened by entrenched bureaucrats with allegiance to their careers and the status quo, not public health. 

 

Compounding the political invisibilization of Long Covid patients are physicians who dismiss physical symptoms as psychological or the catch all diagnosis of anxiety. This is known as medical gaslighting. It is the unacknowledged pandemic within our health care systems. 

 

Mix those systemic factors with some narcissistic and sociopathic personalities in both the political and medical systems and the result is a group of very sick and disabled people being medically and economically marginalized.

 

The good thing is that lots of physicians are experiencing Long Covid and that means they are also experiencing being gaslighted by their colleagues. This is known as ‘getting a taste of your own medicine’ and is the most valuable medical education any of these doctors will ever experience.

 

And as Long Covid patient Jonah McGarva recounts, many doctors need to learn this lesson.

 

Connect with Jonah McGarva

Twitter: @jonah_mcgarva

 

Jonah interviews:
CITY TV NEWS - Oct. 17th

VANCOUVER IS AWESOME - Web Article - Oct. 15th

GOFUNDME - Set up on Oct. 12th

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY - Covid Corner - Oct. 7th

W5 - Season Premiere - Sep. 26th

CBC Web Article - Sep. 20th

CTV National News - Aug. 12th

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.

Tracy Fossum: Chronic pain, chronic gaslighting, chronic bias and a heart attack

When Tracy Fossum had all the symptoms of a heart attack, the emergency room doctors thought Tracy was drug seeking and sent her away. Then her pain specialist physician implored her to go to a different hospital’s emergency room because they were heart attack specialists and would have to run appropriate tests. 

But they thought Tracy was drug seeking too and made her wait 6 hours before being seen by a doctor --- and even then and in spite of being in immense pain for hours, the doctors and nurses were shaming and denigrating Tracy -- that is, until her heart stopped beating.

At that point, the doctors and nurses suddenly became empathetic and supportive of Tracy -- not because they cared about her, but because they realized she was having a heart attack and her husband had witnessed the abuse and neglect and was about to witness her death by medical bias.

This is just one of many harmful medical experiences Tracy has endured while being sick since childhood -- and they have formed her advocacy work around chronic pain -- and as more Long Covid patients report chronic pain, the number of patients needing Tracy and her team’s support is about to explode.

 

Connect with Tracy Fossum:

Email: Helpalbertaspain@gmail.com 

Website: Www.helpalbertaspain.com 

Facebook: Www.facebook.com/groups/helpab 

Twitter: @HELP_AB

 

Melissa Shiff: Her life intersects with wife murdering surgeon, medical error and human rights

When Melissa Shiff had surgery on a cyst in her back, the surgeon nicked her spinal fluid canal causing it to leak spinal fluid. This medical error would lead to more errors and medical harm for Melissa. 

As Melissa wrote to me after the interview: “I get internal tremors, non epileptic seizures, slurred speech, sometimes I lose the ability to move my limbs and need to be carried and of course can barely stand or walk.”

The health system proved useless and essentially abandoned Melissa to suffer without medical care.

As a result of her own research and determination, Melissa eventually got a correct diagnosis, one that could be treated with surgery -- but then she was faced with a health care system ignorant about the disease and the only qualified surgeon in prison for murdering his wife.

But Melissa is not one to give up easily -- listen to find out how Melissa is working hard - and horizontally from her bed - to get the surgery she needs to have any hope of leading a normal vertical life.

 

Swedish Study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.00828/full

 

Connect with Melissa Shiff:

 

Twitter: @MelissaShiff

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissa.shiff.5

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.

 

Terri Lewis PhD: Medicine’s Problem: Drive-by Transactional Medicine

Dr Terri Lewis is a clinical educator with more than 30 years of experience in the development and administration of community rehabilitation and counseling programs.

Terri’s insights into the machinations of the medical system come from both her professional career and her role as a mother.

When Terri’s child experienced pain, it was by and large dismissed by doctors as if children were from a different planet where the species didn’t experience pain.  By ignoring what Terri’s son was reporting, doctors contributed to a worse and more painful - and needless - outcome for him.

In our interview, Terri shares both the formal and personal aspects of her experiences with the health care system --- a medical system that is not focused on the patient as they purport, but focused on cutting patient-doctor appointment time and decreasing other costs while maximizing profits. A system Terri aptly describes as ‘drive-by medicine’.

Connect with Dr Terri Lewis:

Tennessee Pain Care for All

https://www.facebook.com/groups/219464761765372

Fungal Meningitis Survivors

https://www.facebook.com/groups/meningitisoutbreaksurvivors

Twitter

https://twitter.com/tal7291

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.

 

Miranda Levy: Psychiatric Safari - A journalist’s experience with psychiatry and their medications

When journalist Miranda Levy couldn’t sleep due to a relationship upheaval, she sought support from her doctor and fell down a multi year rabbit hole into the wacky world of psychiatric medicine.

Miranda lost herself in a health care system that has little understanding of the powerful psychiatric drugs they dispense like candy. The health care system also has little motivation to acknowledge the torturous effects that can come from withdrawal from these drugs.

Miranda doesn’t mince her words about her experiences with the medical system and the physical addiction it created - where it failed and where it helped - and where it abandoned her when she was at her most sick and desperate and in need of help.

Miranda tells how a treatment centre publicly humiliated her as part of their therapy. And how she felt compelled to lie at the treatment centre’s 12 step program and say “My name is Miranda, and I’m an alcoholic” - even though alcohol was not the issue, it was prescription medications that she was addicted to.

Fortunately, Miranda took control of her health and destiny and started to slowly wean herself off the medications - an ongoing process that is taking years - but she’s got her sharp mind back, she’s back to work as a journalist, and she’s writing a book about her safari into insomnia, mental illness, and the psychiatric world’s version of ‘big game hunters’: Big Profit Pharma

 

Connect with Miranda Levy

Blog - Tales of an Insomniac.com  https://t.co/wxRppQWFHJ?amp=1

 

MirandaLevy.co.uk

Twitter @MirandaLevyCopy

 

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.

 

Beau Tiffany: The Medical Care Racket - 2 damaging surgeries for illnesses he didn’t have

If you had any doubt the medical system, in collusion with the legal, political and insurance systems, were corrupt, those doubts will be waylaid when you hear Beau Tiffany’s experiences with medical error.

Beau has had to endure and battle biased systems since he slipped and fell hard down wet stair steps, causing him multiple injuries. But it was a wrong diagnosis that somehow got into Beau’s electronic health records that led to 2 surgeries for illnesses he did not have.

These needless surgeries have permanently injured Beau’s body and greatly impacted his quality of life -- physically, emotionally and socially. But as you’ll hear, Beau is also making meaning out of his traumatic experiences with medical, political and legal systems that at times collude to deny appropriate health care and deny even a semblance of  justice to medically harmed patients.

Part of Beau’s meaning making is being the creator and host of the Digital Voices podcast, a space for people to share their experiences of - and responses to - medical error.

In my interview with Beau, he shares how his experiences with our societal systems began when he was put into the foster child system as a toddler, a system that would abruptly abandon him and leave him homeless as a teenager. 

But Beau was a voracious reader and had goals of seeing the places and things he had read about, and that motivation took him from living under a bridge to college and world travel and entrepreneurship. 

 

Connect with Beau Tiffany: 

Digital Voices podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Digital-Voices-with-Beau-Tiffany-101452114876004