State Medical Boards: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

[@jaiethemusicman]

As a physician I'm glad this is getting some attention. I just wish something would be done about insurance companies refusing to cover chronic medications, resulting in harm to the patients we prescribe them to.

[@juzoli]

Are you sure there wasn’t an episode about that already?

[@Alblaka]

@@juzoliExactly my first reaction. There's like two episodes covering aspects of US healthcare every season, so insurances are definitely in, and covering chronic medications probably to.

[@jaiethemusicman]

I will never not make a big deal out of insurance companies, and have watched his coverage of it.

[@Virjunior01]

I spent a couple months as an insurance agent. Felt disgusting.

[@jblyon2]

@@jaiethemusicmanDoctors do NOT prescribe treatment for shits 'n giggles! The fact that an insurance company, or more realistically their outsourced review division, can simply decide that your doctor's best judgement is invalid is downright criminal.

[@coryglanton3380]

Great story! I wish you had covered the Arkansas medical board. The now former director of the state medical board is being accused of holding patients against their will in a psychiatric facility in order to bill their insurance more. His name is Brian Hyatt.

[@esteemedmortal5917]

JFC that’s horrifying!

[@lufia1624]

Happens everywhere. Best thing you can do when you get kidnapped is make it wildly public and let then know you have done that. Callnout using their monitored line snad tell people to post about it and tag your facebook. They'll let you out in hours. Scary shit. Hope this guy gets freed.

[@ILikePi31415926535]

​@lufia1624 I don't like posting about grammar, but I think you might want to give this comment a once over since I think the message might come across as jumbled Especially the Fired/Freed typo at the end

[@sachadee.6104]

no way ! (?)

[@valeriebowie6481]

@@lufia1624I would agree with you, but we have to remember that a psychiatric patient saying that the doctor tried to kidnap him nobody would believe it, sadly

[@brianspoelhof]

As an individual with a physician spouse and a pharmacist myself, this issue should be taken 100% seriously. Not just for physicians but for other healthcare professionals as well (pharmacists, nurses, etc.). We need more patient advocates at the table, more reporting, and boards that review cases and take immediate action. We should go one step further and move towards a national licensing system with unified standards.

[@ThisIsATireFire]

All the way down to in-home health aids. As of 10 years ago, Washington state had the most stringent training and testing requirements in the US for in-home care providers. Now I'm in Kentucky and I'm so over qualified that no one will touch me. I'm told to go back to school to be a nursing assistant and to apply at a hospital or private office. I didn't get into the bottom of the medical field to chart vitals. I specifically chose this career to help families like my own who were struggling to care for my grandmother who was dying of lupis, while my parents were raising 2 teenagers and trying to hold their own careers. All states should have the same requirements for each position.

[@briangarrow448]

I agree with you! Your statement is something that should have been addressed decades ago. The present system is critically flawed and the public should be protected from this kind of behavior.

[@jamesdowell5268]

It's unfair that so many providers work so hard to be exceptional and have a spotless record, only to have bad doctors abusing the system in their midst. Totally agree!

[@pinksenshi9690]

Amen to that. It is so confusing that each state has different rules for their licensing. As a Virginia physician, I cannot provide care out of the state. So if I do telemed - if my patient is out of state on vacation or in college, I can't see them or send in meds for them. But when I practiced in TN, it wasn't a problem. This is an especially big issue for my patients in college. It's frustrating that I can't provide care to patients I have known just because they are studying out of state

[@strongbad666]

While there are two types of nurses in the United States, practical and registered nurses, the boards between states differ in their reporting guidelines and how robust claims against nurses, techs, EMTs, paramedics, etc. are pursued. The reason for this is not for malice but for the simple fact that assigning blame of malpractice or unfortunate outcome is sometimes difficult when you have all of these specialties practicing on someone in (often) the same day. Historically, nurses (practical and registered) have suffered the brunt of organizational and legislative body action and some equity on holding everyone accountable would be nice because when I practiced as a nurse I caught no less than ten mistakes made by pharmacists or pharmacy technicians. I referred this back to them, and I didn't even get a thank you. *American healthcare is full of sanctimonious people who all think they are the most important part of the system (and yes, a lot of those people are nurses too.)*

[@rcranes2227]

Another doctor here, thanking you for this report. We ask the public to trust us and to listen to our expert opinions, but that should go hand in hand with transparency and policing ourselves and our own. We probably need federal legislation that opens the database to the public, but also requires hospitals to report every single discipline incident.

[@alexae1367]

Thank you so much for caring. I have a plea to make to medicine in this world. Please, would somebody stop ignoring craniocervical injuries that/ just because they don't contain fractures? Medicine is perfectly aware of what brainstem and vagus nerve pressure do to a person, they're perfectly aware that the spinal cord and the subarachnoid space are not much smaller than the space they have to pass through. So why did whichever doctors discovered that children have loose joints, not impress upon all birthing doctors that ligaments will be much more easily stretched or torn for young children?? And that parents need to know that if they wrench a child's joints, that they need abundant rest to heal those ligaments?! If even at all possible!

[@alexae1367]

I was dropped approximately 2½-3 ft at 18 months old by a very resentful brother, and given no treatment or medical attention of any kind. I was never even told about this injury until approximately 5 years ago, even though it completely changed my character in a conspicuous way at that time, and had clear dysautonomia symptoms my whole life. I went through my life thinking that I was highly anxious and depressed, until after an accident that shouldn't have hurt anybody that much, someone relieved my pain for half an hour, and I suddenly understood that I was not anxious or depressed. I was just in SOO much pain I had absolutely no idea about, how to cope with it, or even that it was physical pain. So if someone comes into a doctor's office after finding from one of the only rare subspecialties that even deals with upper cervical subluxation, which most chiropractors for some reason aren't even told about, and says that they have 17° of head tilt, and 12 1/2° of C2 rotation, and that this makes them the second worst case they've ever seen, rather than staring at them like you've never heard anyone speak before, someone needs to tell them that they need to take the pressure off their brain stem at all costs(!!). I wouldn't be dying if someone had told me this. This means they need to quit their job, go home, live with their parents, even if they were abusers in their childhood, do whatever they have to do to get the pressure off the brain stem, or they're never going to heal. I had a five-star business, that I didn't stop working until I had absolutely run myself into the ground and was unable to do almost anything at all. I was an active, responsible person, I had some very serious humanitarian ideas I wanted to start organizations to work on, a trauma counseling practice I wanted to start. Instead, I lie here day after day, trying to work on it and figure out basic things that medicine has already known for many years, contemplating if I'm going to have to take my own life and if I'm going to be brave enough, or what's going to happen to me. For nothing. Getting food stamps, being a burden, unable to even handle properly applying for disability, because doctors won't write anything about the consequences of my condition into their notes, because it seems, medical school does not teach or give doctors the right to have logical thought about what they're looking at, or anything about this condition specifically. Even though I see elements of what I suffer in people all over the place, and I truly suspect that it's a serious epidemic. They say we only have 45 to 80 harvests left worth of nutrients in the soil, and that to get the nutrients of a 1920s orange, you'd have to eat 5 now, already. And I see that there's almost no treatment for ligamentous laxity. Sure, it could very well be that we just were never Advanced enough to do anything about it, so we haven't yet. Or could it be that we never had this problem, until recently. Anyway, so I have to write this massive letter, that two or three of my least shirking physicians and zpecialists have agreed to sign on to, that my life basically depends on, because even those won't take either the time or whatever the risk would to write it into my chart notes themselves, which doesn't even make any sense because in spite of the fact that my Physicians all say so, there's nothing very complicated about this condition at all given what much more complicated things medicine already knows about. And it's been 2 months and I still can't write it, because I can't sit up for remotely long enough without getting worse, and I can't even think for how much it hurts all the time. I got a 3.3 average in a program where you have to get a 3.9 to get into any decent grad school, I made my website, I'm not unable to think critically in general. And now I figure / find out that it seems I actually have something in all of my posterior superficial and even moderately deep cervical musculature called muscular fatty atrophy, where basically those muscles don't work, and they say never will again. Nobody explains my CT in any manner that makes any sense to anyone. I've been told it's a lipoma but mostly that it's not. That it's fat riddled throughout the tissue, but it's also at the subdermal lair. But also that all the biopsy that they didn't even want to bother to do turned up, was thickened reticular skin. I'm seriously going to die from this someone read this and Help me. Please

[@alexae1367]

Aand now it's said it would post my next comment explaining more, and thrown it away and there's no way I can rewrite it...

[@mallninja9805]

I don't trust doctors at all, and it's not because of the doctors themselves. Like all of us, they're trapped in an end-stage capitalism funnel, sucking as many nickels out of our pockets for the least possible value they can get away with. I have a hard time believing federal legislation will do anything beyond identify a few sacrificial scapegoats here and there while the real problems continue to go unresolved.

[@kathleenflick6041]

You can't police yourselves. Policing yourselves results in coverup, historically. Just ask the women and minorities whose complaints you've ignored. Poor little rich guy.

[@thomasnguyen3925]

I work in a hospital; there is one thing that I have yet to hear John speak on. Medical boards are full of executives. While the COVID pandemic was raging on, one of our executives had the balls to tell is about getting away from the Bay Area and taking a month off at his vacation home. So when you say the boards are underfunded, no. The funds are just going to the top earners, just like the rest of the economy. These executives never had to take care of patients at all, but made MILLIONS before, during, and to this day.

[@ginamanon3307]

Exactly!!!!!!

[@adamlassiter1296]

​Dont be rude dude, two things can be true and not everything is black and white. One hospitals medical board can be underfunded while anothers is simply corrupt. If we lived in a small city we could easily identify and fix either situation, but we are having to place rules and regulations for 51 different states that are the size of countries.​@@bunk95

[@far2ez]

Something being powerful-but-underfunded is exactly what leads to rich people doing it.

[@sidvicious332]

Its exactly like the police situation in this country. The demand for doctors and police is so great that it allows for those to oversee to look the other way because of understaffing as a whole.

[@kathleenroberts6931]

The Privatization of Healthcare has proven disastrous 😡 Physicians & Medical professionals are being overworked & underpaid. We are the only modern country that does not have Universal Healthcare, which would save U.S taxpayers $500 Billion dollars a year in Healthcare costs 😊

[@nelsonfields7679]

we spent a long time telling people, "Hey! do you want to earn a lot of money? become a doctor!" and now we have a ton of doctors that don't give a shit about anything other than their bank accounts.

[@xboxsteven]

Uhhhh, family practice pediatrics and psychiatry in many states don't even break 6 figures before taxes homie...

[@emdivine]

@@xboxsteven yeah it being a LIE we told doesn't really improve the situation

[@JohnCrichton]

Yeah right I don't believe that​@@xboxsteven

[@nicholassmith7984]

When you use money as a motivator, it becomes the only motivator.

[@AlmostOmniscient]

​@@xboxsteven As all those medical areas suffer from chronic shortages, that isn't mutually exclusive with the original post. If being a doctor is gatekept with absurd financial and hazi...I mean residency requirements, the people who do meet those requirements probably will opt for better compensated specializations.

[@SkyeSpider]

Thank you for covering this. I had a simple surgery in 2008 for a torn ligament in my wrist. My surgeon botched it. In trying to take him to court, I learned that he’d injured dozens of patients permanently including paralyzing one from the neck down. I wasn’t able to sue him because Oklahoma capped tort suit judgments at $150k (it’s now much lower), and cost to take it to trial was much more than that. I’ve had 6 more surgeries on the wrist. I’m in constant chronic pain and have only 30% use of my right hand due to it. I’ve been stuck in pain management since (opioids). I was a musician when it happened. It ended my career. I’m also autistic, and had difficulty with jobs in general. Now no one will hire me with a physical disability as well. My original doctor got no punishment from the medical board or any of the hospitals he practiced at. This shit needs to end.

[@anniestumpy9918]

I'm so sorry this happened to you. May this "doctor" rot in hell... Greetings, a fellow autistic who was failed by the medical profession too.

[@djranbarringer6422]

@skyspider I have a similar issue like yours where the doctor wronged me and I had to go back for a revision and still got worse. Now I have spastic legs, knee hyperextention and can barely walk a few feet before my spastic legs feel frozen. This same surgeon was sued in 2017 for a paients Death and another for brain damage. This is the state of California. I tried to sue also but was told that they can't prove it was below standard care when I have video evidence of what I walked like before the surgery. Imagine that. A surgeon in the state of California can screw up anyone's life that he wants to and will not be held accountable💯

[@dar44445]

@@djranbarringer6422😔

[@pinkieummyum9653]

So sorry for your misfortunes! Maybe look into Dr. Morse a naturopath for a more natural alternative treatment. Good luck on your journey! Much love!!

[@theplasmapro8343]

"This shit needs to end" YEAH I'D LIKE TO FUCKIN THINK SO!!! That is not okay. How was that allowed at all?!

[@msajvarghese]

Please do a piece on medical training (specifically residency) and its struggles! Overall low pay, 24-28 hour long shifts, violation of work hours and pressures to report less, lack of mental health and other support resources, high administrative costs (paying for testing, educational resources, licensing, etc.), and on and on...

[@richardauten7179]

do a piece on abbreviating duty hours but not lengthening training duration to compensate. US medical training is much shorter than UK, France, Germany

[@TheMartuksxxxx]

This makes House MD very realistic, how he got away with everything he did

[@SharonButler-l6o]

I just wish all the doctors who get away with everything they do were as good as Dr. House!! Also wouldn't hurt if they were also Hugh Laurie

[@gusmonster59]

@@SharonButler-l6o Really? House was a horrible doctor. He was rude, insensitive and often wrong.

[@Jade-kx4sm]

If doctors were rude to patients and heath admin they would 100% get their license taken away regardless of the results of patient care lol

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

And then when he got a personal friend back onto the medical board (after the old guy retired)

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@gusmonster59 A doctor will never be able to do their job properly if being rude or insensitive is taboo. There are no cases where it's ok for a doctor to ever sugarcoat things or lie to make the patient feel better. Brutal, clinical precision is THE MORALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY CORRECT THING for a doctor.

[@Neukids]

As a doctor, I would WANT the NPDB to be robust and accessible. We already have a huge lack of doctors, and the bad doctors will make things worse. MAKE NPDB accessible to ALL

[@BlackTecno2]

The biggest problem right now is that we do have a huge lack of doctors. If we had more doctors, it'd be easier to replace the bad one with good or even okay ones. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have the database be more accessible, but you guys work too long hours plus being on call. You all deserve more normal hours like the rest of us.

[@UnknownPascal-sc2nk]

Doesn't the AMA deliberately limit the number of people who can study medicine? There's no similar quota system for car mechanics or many other professions. There must be thousands of people who could learn the trade but are kept out. Why? Is it just to limit the supply to keep salaries high?

[@saabmiata]

@@UnknownPascal-sc2nk I don't know about deliberately limiting the number of seats in medical school, but it is extremely difficult and expensive to get into a US medical school now. I suspect that a lot of good candidates are kept out. They say that the number of seats are dependent on the number of residency positions, which are in turn dependent on the number of hospitals that can and do have programs.

[@j.macjordan9779]

​@BlackTecno2 - There is a dangerous shortage of doctors in the US, with many of the new doctors coming online as PAs that must practice under the license of an MD. But the risk of litigation is high, insurance is high, the time & cost for education is exceedingly high, & specialization only guarantees all of these factors will be the absolute worst for them. There's more than just boards needing fixed that's going on here.

[@yannicklarafunez4768]

@@UnknownPascal-sc2nk That is everywhere If I recall correctly from a friend explaining it to me, one of the key issues is capacity, when you study medicine you also have to do residency at a hospital and the more people you have to teach in praxis. So to ensure there isn't a grape of 30 med students walking through the hospital there is a limit put on it. The second is quality, by ensuring only the top of the top study med you can ensure a higher quality of doctors, which has the massive issue of conflating academical skill with actual potential in a profession.

[@darlene5588]

I'm a retired RN and graduated in 1978. I've seen many bad doctors and RN's during my career. I also saw when insurance companies started dictating patient care. It was horrific then and worse now!

[@ICgay4]

I have no med field experience, just been a social worker and thinking of going back to school for respiratory therapist. Any advice? Everybody says it's not better and healthcare in US is awful, which I understand but I just wanna help, work hard and support my fam more.

[@lotrfan8]

There's no way nurses would get away with anything like this.

[@ryanwalker4660]

has medical care gotten better?

[@spaceface124]

As a student nurse, that's disheartening to hear. My professors are always insisting that we double check a doctor's orders, because they might not make sense.

[@lotrfan8]

@@ryanwalker4660 might depend on the facility, but in a way, no. There's so much emphasis on documentation that it's just become about covering yourself instead of patient care. But if documentation takes almost 2hrs and we're not paid overtime for documentation, something's gotta give.

[@cguyre]

They took away the working hour maximum for residents at one point because it wasn’t statistically decreasing errors but two things about that: I know residents who were forced to fudge their timesheets to make it look like they were under 80 hours a week when the limits were in place and regardless of the validity of the statistics I don’t want a doctor working on me in their 80th hour working that week. That’s insane.

[@soggynutsjr]

im currently a resident and can confirm the 80 hour work limit, however thats an 80 hour weekly limit averaged over a month. nothing stopping a program from encouraging a resident to work well above 80 hours a week if they cut the hours from a different week. my program is actually quite good at adhereing with not letting us go over 80 hours in any particular week, but not all the other programs in my area are. and even doing this, i still have colleagues that are encouraged to underreport their hours because they STILL cannot stay under 80 hours/week on average.

[@robertwilliams5206]

Resident here - we also will have months where every third day we have a 28+ hour shift. You don’t want me to be your doctor after being up for 28 hours.

[@marinmazer]

It's averaged. If my program were to tell me to work 100h one week, then 60 the next week, the average is 80h/w so it's all good. Also, your residency can apply for an extension to 88h week if it's deemed "valuable for resident education". And all for an average of 68k$ a year (whether you work 60h or more)

[@JoshuaRed-v4f]

​@@marinmazerso it's worse, because instead of 80hs you could be practicing medicine after working 100hs in a week

[@tracyaf6084]

@@robertwilliams5206I’m so sorry they do this to you guys. I’m a nurse and had a resident once fall asleep in the middle of a sentence while we were discussing orders. I had another one who was falling asleep in the OR. I had to slap him awake. It’s awful. It’s cruel. It hurts patients and you certainly aren’t learning anything in that state.

[@laalaa99stl]

This was a well-researched piece... for someone so young and inexperienced.

[@kninenights]

Wild comment to see before you finish the video

[@lpc9929]

I eat candle

[@weast4421]

Agreed😂

[@Eclipse-lw4vf]

Ah now it makes sense 😂

[@The_Official_Goblin]

It's shocking how someone so...young and inexperienced... could research all of that, and come up with jokes on the spot

[@DanaGoldbergMD]

As a physician, I can say I am disgusted by physicians who skirt the laws. A national system needs to standardize reporting so that bad nurses and doctors cannot hop from job to job.

[@hew195050]

It’s frightening to a layperson. I”m glad i avoid doctors unless something is acute. That said, I have an awesome PC who is conservative in her approach. I treasure her.

[@jeffs6090]

One doctor highlighted in this report has worked at many hospitals in different states even. I worked with him before our hospital stopped allowing him to operate there due to a high infection rate, among other reasons.

[@davidhollenshead4892]

As a patient I have to deal with the presumption that I had sued for malpractice effecting my medical care. Despite that I didn't sue because it can affect your ability to get medical care in the future... A physician working for the University of Michigan Hospital wrote "young male seeking pain drugs for nefariousness purposes..... faking pain symptoms" on my chart" in his attempt to prevent another physician from discovering that he made my condition worse. As he had a physical therapist use traction on me when I actually needed emergency back surgery. So a bone fragment got wedged into the nerve root channel for L4 on the left while in traction. I had been "turfed" from a private hospital for "insufficient coverage", the reason that emergency surgery had not been performed at said private hospital. Had he opened the envelope containing the X-rays showing that L1, L3, L4, & L5 were broken, as I had four vertebrae broken by a habitual drunk drivers fourth injury accident... My surgeon got me scheduled for surgery in less than a week after first being introduced to him, and he also visited that University of Michigan physician so he could cold clock him and tell him to "resign your medical licence within two weeks" which he did. It turned out that the University of Michigan Hospital would hire the drunks & idiots who had been trained by the University of Michigan Medical School to keep their stats up. Meaning they hired them so they could say that 99.x% of the doctors we trained are working in their specialty....

[@kimclarke5018]

Apparently you have never heard of nursys. I’m a nurse in the US and they do track nurses and anything on their licenses throughout the US and Canada May be soon onboard as well. So nurses are far more tracked nationally than physicians. If there is any misconduct on your licenses as a nurse you can’t get a job. Which is how it should be. We have a duty to protect the public from poor practitioners

[@louieberg2942]

@@kimclarke5018So there is a system in place for nurses? That means we need not reinvent the wheel, just adapt it for use: tracking doctors. Now I wonder... why is it hard to implement this system for doctors, but not for nurses?

[@carlairving]

As a child with severe asthma, I was once brought into the ER for breathing difficulties. The pediatre looked at me for maybe 10 seconds, than told my mom I was having a very slight cold and was making it up to miss school, and he discharged us that moment. 5 hours later, I was back in the ER. Long story short, I almost died of pneumonia at 10, was hospitalized for a week and had to quarantine at home for 2 months with our family doctor as only visitor as I was too week and the infection nearly vanquished all my immune system. I think about that pediatric ER doctor from time to time. I wonder how many kids he discharged to their death. Not the only story I have, but the most serious one that happened to me. A funny one is the pharmacist who rolled their eyes and told me "got it, we'll call someone else" upon seeing my prescription for the wrong medicine." He then explained that that doctor was known by all professionals in the neighborhood to be an old fart who should've retired years before. Medicine is wild sometimes.

[@jupiterzombies]

mmmh i have a similar story, but i was a little older. nothing as serious but i had gotten a splinter deep under my skin somehow. just kept swelling and swelling from infection. so we go to see an ER doctor who sends us to dermatology who says "nah, its too inflamed to take it out now." as in.... its too infected for him to operate? to take a splinter out?? what??... sends me home telling my mom to put warm towels on it, no antibiotics, no anti-inflamatory, nothing. next day ive already got a fever. 'cause my dad's a fisherman and hardcore like that, i just poke the tip of a knife in and pull it out on my own (gross, yes. unsafe, also yes.). but thank god now the wound is getting drained and cleaned and we can wrap it up. big hole in my arm though, so we go back to ER, get sent to the same doctor. now he looks at the hole and goes "welp. looks better now". still no antibiotics. i ask him can you put stitches on it at least "nah, we only do that if its an inch or wider" (it was a lot wider than that). me and mom are absolutely stunned. nurse who was there the previous time too (seems to be his assistant) looks at me pitifully when he walks out and dresses my wound, and quietly she tells me "you did good taking that thing out yourself. he's a lazy bastard.".... for a healthcare professional to say 'actually good idea sticking a knife under your skin' to a CHILD you can imagine how bad it was !! eventually we told our family doctor (wonderful lady) who basically said the same thing, and if i had followed his advice and let it go on much longer i would've turned septic....absolutely no words!!

[@paridasnapesnapesnape5584]

*Please please please do an episode on physician/ resident/ medical trainee burnout and suicide.* We lose nearly one physician per day to suicide. We’re at higher rates of depression and suicide than the general public. The conditions we work in and the stress we are put under, particularly under the regulations set by the ACGME, are inhumane and unconscionable. At my current hospital, we just lost a resident physician very recently. This is an urgent issue and we’d really benefit from a program with this kind of reach to shine a spotlight on it.

[@d.l.d.l.8140]

Incredible that they do this to you folks. Being capable of 48 hour shifts doesn’t mean it should be part of your entry into the field. That’s unhealthy in and of itself. And there’s no way it improves patient care. It’s a way to take financial advantage of young doctors, but it’s also hazing. Childish. Probably “ weeds out ” a lot of people who would’ve been fine otherwise. And I’ve heard stories of veteran doctors taking advantage of the system. Sidebar: So many doctors kill things on vacation. Dentists also. What’s up with that? Anyway, good luck with changing the ridiculous requirements you face for no good or fair reasons. I think I can speak for everyone present when the topic has come up, and believe it or not we know about it, when I say we all are appalled and support your views. Don’t remember anyone ever endorsing it. I think we should have as many doctors as are able to qualify. No other professionals control the amount of competition they face, and that’s the true reason for limiting med school admissions. Don’t want to hear the arguments about not being able to accommodate the students, that’s both ridiculous and transparent. Average Joe knows it doesn’t work like that. Not well, anyway. Good luck, Best, and thank you in advance.

[@miseentrope]

Veterinarians and vet techs have entered the chat 🐾

[@sarahross2441]

I agree 💯 %! No one wants to have a doctor who’s been up for 48 hours straight and is doing 100 hour weeks. No one wants a doctor with an untreated mental illness bcuz they’re too afraid of the consequences if they seek help. It’s unconscionable! There are so many doctors out there that don’t want their kid to ever have to go through that to become a doctor as well. Personally, I think doctors should be paid a lot more. Everyone is always surprised when I tell them that doctors start at $30,000 a year. 8 years of school, having nothing but school in their lives, and 100s of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and they make so little. It isn’t until many years later that they make even a decent sum. Then they put them through this torture which is cruel. People need to know.

[@brandondavis1039]

One per day? Wow. Thanks for the heads up that's crazy

[@zannigan222]

I'm so sorry😢

[@willderr20]

As a medical student currently, several of my classmates already have a few names of fellow students they would never trust with the care of their future patients or family members. When you work with people every day, you very quickly find out who should and shouldn't have people's lives in their hands. 1.8% causing the majority of malpractice suit costs sounds pretty consistent with the percent of students we see that are ethically problematic.

[@lisacarter9269]

As a fellow med student, I couldn't agree more. Sometime you do truly have moments when you stop for a second and think '***that*** person will be a doctor soon??'

[@Nighthunt01]

sounds like there should be some sort of anonymous peer survey that asks "do you have any concerns of your follow students skills", and they could investigate just to make sure they never get a licenced

[@juvedoo99]

@@Nighthunt01basically a secret shopper type of situation. I like that.

[@poeticsilence047]

I would think it might cause issues since it may be used in bad faith at times for someone who doesn't like another. ​@Nighthunt01

[@Nighthunt01]

@@poeticsilence047 that is why i said the investigate part...of course you don't decide right there and then....its more a "keep an eye on that one"

[@allisonhoff5805]

A member of my family was molested by a doctor and when she tried to do something about it she was told that she could EITHER report it to the police OR the medical board. She was told that they could not overlap and if she tried, then they would both drop the case/complaint. So, she had to choose if it was more important to her to try to get him jail time (which was unlikely) or if she should try to get his license taken (which was borderline impossible). She chose the medical board in hopes that it would protect other women. They forced her to testify in front of him while he laughed at her to her face, then they said, "we'll note your complaint" and proceeded to do nothing. Years later a detective came to the door and said he'd been looking for witnesses against the doctor for over year and had only finally gotten her name in a very round-about way. He had apparently abused dozens of women, if not more. I am disabled and after years of being treated like crap I had already lost faith that most doctors actually knowing what they're doing, but her experience made me scared of the whole system. We need NPDB to be accessible, we need systems that don't punish you for reporting other doctors or nurses, we need to be safe to get health care!

[@emdee8840]

Agree. I woke up in my hospital room to find a nurse with her hand down the front of my hospital gown. I startled awake and she quickly removed her hand, claimed she was checking leads on a monitor. Yeah, sure, right, uh huh. It would seem only reasonable to get my permission before touching me in an intimate area. The whole hospital stay they treated me like an insensate piece of meat. I had to advocate for myself every single day. I feel as though I was molested and violated but how can I prove it? since it was done while I was asleep, on pain medication, and had just had a very serious surgery.

[@alexandradaniele]

One of our OBs was in the paper a few years ago- he had been using his sperm to fertilize eggs for IVF for his infertility patients. It was discovered when one of the adult children did a 23 and Me thing and found out her father was not her biological father. Which was a shock to her mother. I think by then he had retired but he was prosecuted.

[@zubetp]

@@alexandradanielejesus christ dude that is pathological. please tell me he had to pay a $200 fine and write an apology letter

[@royce9018]

not at all how that system works, lol

[@CharlotteFairchild]

A Call to Action is by Jimmy Carter about women being treated equally, including the UN. The Carter Center may have some people who are making a difference. IDK. Get the book to work on problems with the way we are treated by society as women.

[@kaemincha]

As someone who has attempted to file a compaint to a state medical board about a doctor, YES! It is so convoluted.

[@hew195050]

I’m 73 and 5 years ago I went to a new gyn. He was suspiciously inappropriate. When I told my PC she said never to go to him again and just forget about it, that I’d never get anywhere if i reported him. That piece of shit perpetrator is still practicing.

[@sandksmom]

Tell me about it.

[@thatjillgirl]

It's pretty easy to file a complaint in my state (I've done it once), but I tend to assume that nothing will really come of it.

[@kaemincha]

@@thatjillgirl I'm not sure which state you live in, but I live in Alabama 💀 our bureaucracy is a bit behind the times here, technology and processes move like molasses.

[@thatjillgirl]

@@kaemincha I'm in Oklahoma. Weirdly, we occasionally have progressive medical monitoring tools (like we were one of the earliest adopters of a PMP). But again, reporting is only half the battle. Just because you can report something doesn't mean anything will be done about it.

[@MoneyMikeMurray]

I had a lithotripsy(waves to break up kidney stones) and should be in and out, same day. No issue... They told my girlfriend and mother that I would complain about the pain but I didn't need to return to the hospital. I knew immediately when walking out of the hospital that was something wrong but was repeatedly told I was fine. Long story short 6 hours later I returned to the hospital and apparently they "aimed wrong" i was bleeding internally. I was hospitalized 11 days, was very close to needing a blood transfusion and the lower 2/3 of my body turned people for weeks. I was told it's a routine type mistake they happen. Of course, i have no recourse..

[@DK-zu6tt]

If it's "routine" in any way and you were not fully educated on it, the symptoms and what actions to take, then that is of itself malpractice. They can't have it both ways.

[@anjobanjo1221]

Uh... What?!? That's awful and absurd. I'm so sorry you had you go through that.

[@treetzar1107]

Telling your family members to ignore your pain has got to be malpractice on it's own.

[@Luubelaar]

If this is a "routine type of mistake" they make, then this is a rubbish hospital and they should all be fired. I used to work for a team of urological surgeons nearly 30 years ago when lithotripsy was pretty new for busting up kidney stones (This was in Australia in the late 1990s.) In all the time I worked for them, this was NEVER a thing that happened. The technology today is light years ahead of what is was 3 decades ago. There is no excuse for this kind of terrible treatment.

[@joshuastanton6731]

Please John! Look at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the employment/referral process. There are dangerous and deadly conflicts of interests happening.

[@LaurieWiegler]

My mother was killed on the cath table and the Tex Med Assoc twice did not find the dr accountable. Preceding this segment I was working on a story. Thank you, John.

[@LaurieWiegler]

Because obviously this subject is emotionally charged for me, I need to dig up the letters but I believe I also filed a complaint with Tex Med Board. According to a competent physician I know, Mom was not properly assessed before her procedure 8-22-18.

[@journeysands2622]

Well, not every death is the dr's fault

[@garyjenkins7249]

If this is a writing sample, I suggest you work very hard on that story

[@thishtns]

I'm sorry for your loss. That sounds awful.

[@anju8376]

@@garyjenkins7249that’s embarrassing for u. a book as a medium is diff than a comment on youtube. there are different rules for published media vs. social media, im not sure why u dont know that yet? you may want to research that, since youre commenting in bad faith and against the etiquette rules of this form. lol you thought you ate with your comment😂

[@katharinemcneill5149]

As a doctor I agree with everything you said! And I think most doctors I know would feel the same. We don't want to see patients harmed, and we want patients to be able to trust us, and that requires getting rid of these bad apples. Thank you for shining some light on this subject.

[@SunilChickmagalur]

PLEASE do an episode on physician training in the US. The process to match to residency and the governing bodies that regulate residency programs are ridiculously outdated. Trainee burnout and suicide is addressed with less than useless "wellness modules" across the country. An episode highlighting this issue would be incredible

[@caitgrate6172]

I worked in hospitals for years and I honestly am not shocked about the amount of medical errors that occur. In our current medical culture, there will be errors. From the very beginning, residency is a hot, toxic mess with residents doing a huge amount of the patient-seeing and then report to their attending on absolutely absurd shifts. We had one resident who would sneak up to our floor to see if we had a spare bed for him to take a nap before rounds and reports the next morning because going home to sleep while he was technically "off work" was too time consuming and those naps were tragically short. You have one doctor who will be on-call to address patient changes overnight for an entire medical group, making choices based on the available documentation and the nurse or hospitalist communicating urgent changes - and that doctor may or may not be seeing patients the next day. I know a lot of it is out of necessity because there's a shortage of EVERY healthcare worker, but the result is a culture that normalizes working while exhausted with patients you may have seen for a few minutes at the crack of dawn while they were half asleep - if you've seen them at all - and that's just a breeding ground for mistakes.

[@sachadee.6104]

🙏

[@somatiform]

There are no ethics in a for profit health system, is what we're all realizing, and the erosion of norms is spreading to medicine. Residency is just a mechanism that hospitals use to get cheap labor, period. Capitalism is a death cult. Insurance companies will make you beg for a medication every year, with zero concern for the patient. Everything is breaking down, doctors not respecting the practice of medicine, patients losing faith in their doctors and the pharmaceutical industry; all while record breaking profits are being made. Nationalizing healthcare is the only solution, and it requires a marked decrease in the "freedoms" currently enjoyed by the rich and upper middle class under the current system. It's mostly poor people being butchered out there. How many people do we sacrifice in the US every year to maintain this insanity?

[@maxjakobsson8491]

Smart system made by smart people

[@huSTLer3293]

Currently on call, I can confirm. It is fucking shit out here. The chicken tender I’m eating has to be the only reason I’m not losing it. We get zero help. We’re cattle to a system that wants to bleed patients of their money, all while shirking responsibility and liability onto the healthcare workers. My hospital is cutting nurses as patient census spikes, all while building a whole new wing with 400 more beds

[@llkellenba]

Yep. It is true. While the hospital administration’s Safety Officer preaches danger alert 🚨 like lack of sleep leading to errors then turns a blind eye to scheduling providers ridiculous rotating day night shifts in an infant intensive care unit (plus other areas where any pediatric patient might be) 24 hour shifts were also scheduled. During the night I had doctors on call who were my back up yet lived many miles away in another city. I was a Nurse Practitioner and it was frightening. As well as physically and psychologically harmful.

[@LiliKoi503]

I’ve worked in sex abuse for 15 years. So many clients have been assaulted by physicians, yet when we’ve made reports to the medical board, not one has ever been investigated. I don’t understand the point of even reporting it. The clients do report to the police, but very few ever get picked up by prosecution, another chronic problem.

[@SallyImpossible]

I had a young doctor make some odd inappropriate comments when I was a college student. I was too shy to say anything. Wonder if he went on to molest patients.

[@LiliKoi503]

@@SallyImpossibleI’m sorry to hear that. I’m certain you were not the only one 😏

[@christiandauz3742]

You should use an anonymous account to tell everyone his name and what he did on Social Media

[@brbl415]

understood but you can't just accuse people without proof not just he said she said

[@EclecticGreyWitch]

​@@christiandauz3742 That could get her in legal trouble. Anonymous posting probably is easy to trace or find out their account, and you can't put someone's name out there with an accusation. I'm not saying she's lying, but she needs to prove it in a court of law. If you say someone did something, naming them, and someone goes after them, you could be charged, too.

[@helanna9843]

I'm sure you hear a million stories like ours. My husband was the victim of an incompetent doctor who had so many charges filed against him he lost his medical license - for five years. He moved to Oregon and continued to practice and five years later moved back to California and set up a new practice. Thanks for highlighting the dangers of medical malpractice and the lack of accountability by the AMA.

[@davidhollenshead4892]

Agreed: As a patient I have to deal with the presumption that I had sued for malpractice effecting my medical care. Despite that I didn't sue because it can affect your ability to get medical care in the future... A physician working for the University of Michigan Hospital wrote "young male seeking pain drugs for nefariousness purposes..... faking pain symptoms" on my chart" in his attempt to prevent another physician from discovering that he made my condition worse. As he had a physical therapist use traction on me when I actually needed emergency back surgery. So a bone fragment got wedged into the nerve root channel for L4 on the left while in traction. I had been "turfed" from a private hospital for "insufficient coverage", the reason that emergency surgery had not been performed at said private hospital. Had he opened the envelope containing the X-rays showing that L1, L3, L4, & L5 were broken, as I had four vertebrae broken by a habitual drunk drivers fourth injury accident... My surgeon got me scheduled for surgery in less than a week after first being introduced to him, and he also visited that University of Michigan physician so he could cold clock him and tell him to "resign your medical licence within two weeks" which he did. It turned out that the University of Michigan Hospital would hire the drunks & idiots who had been trained by the University of Michigan Medical School to keep their stats up. Meaning they hired them so they could say that 99.x% of the doctors we trained are working in their specialty....

[@TakenTook]

The AMA doesn't regulate physicians. It's a voluntary organization, like joining the AARP, or your local VFW/KofC/etc. lodge, or a college fraternity/sorority. And at this point in history, it's a small percentage of practicing physicians who are actually AMA members. Lots of medical students and residents join, but they don't necessarily maintain membership. Despite the problems discussed in this video, regulation at this point still has to come from state and county medical boards, and from state and federal licensing organizations that physicians are required to maintain certification with. And that varies by specialty in some cases.

[@bagitson]

@@TakenTook it's the same for the ABA (American Bar Association). No one is a member lol. However, in the practice of law we do not largely have reciprocal admission, but we do have reciprocal banning, meaning a disbarment in one state will result in a disbarment in all other states. Perhaps doctors should be regulated the same way.

[@keepnreal7835]

@@TakenTookhow are Board Members selected?

[@TakenTook]

@@bagitson -- I agree that it should be a nationwide thing, and there should be a registry for physicians and other medical professionals who have been sanctioned.

[@hambone4984]

Yikes!! Well this is beyond worrisome. Good to know that my complaint to the California medical board is being handled by such an esteemed board 😬 my old doctor missed an entire pregnancy, so here I am with a baby neither my husband nor I planned for or had time to prepare for and had absolutely zero prenatal care. I had negative at home tests and my doctor kept telling me my symptoms were due to me being stressed and needing to lose weight (which she didn't believe I was working out because "you keep gaining weight")

[@KMx108]

I'm amazed at how many doctors are complete idiots. I told mine I was bruising easily. His bright idea was that I probably didn't remember hurting myself. There ended up being an actual medical issue. I swear, my friend who's an electrical engineer did a better differential diagnosis just during casual conversation.

[@takeru3159]

I'm glad we saw that hollow chest scene, but I'm somewhat disappointed they didn't show the scene of the dog walking away with the transplant heart again.

[@astrowolvez]

I’m pretty sure they showed that in a different medical related episode.

[@avakining]

@@astrowolvezhence “again”

[@IrrelevantPride]

I was listening to it while driving and that was the scene I expected to be played haha glad I'm not the only one

[@jjww30]

I would argue this was even more absurd. Dogs steal hearts all the time, but the lowered this frozen dude to the floor without cracking him in half, then proceeded to crush him never noticing the whole frozen situation.

[@Ehh.....]

​@@jjww30"dogs steal hearts all the time" Wait what?

[@frankiesayspanic]

i genuinely thought that cpr scene was supposed to be like a “cake or real” thing

[@jackiechan_wtf4041]

@Mr.Tiger444 How's the weather over in Lagos Nigeria? 🇳🇬 How many people did you scam this week? Did you make your quota? 🤔🤔

[@schalkerleiden]

@@jackiechan_wtf4041 91 and sunny

[@toastiesburned9929]

ITS CAKE!

[@astrowolvez]

Don’t know why youtube took away the block button, now can’t get rid of these bots.

[@TikkiNikki]

It reminded of my brother when we were in boy scouts. We were doing a COR class and he busted the dummy (was a $10k dummy supposedly) and it looks exactly like that

[@marcel-rotzoll]

I will never ever understand why you should protect or cover for "someone of your own". There are persons that don't hold up the standards, threaten the life of people and of course demolish the reputation of a whole industry. Why on earth would you protect someone like this?

[@andreirachko]

tribalism is built-in into everyone's brain; hard to fight it

[@desperadox7565]

Because then they protect you when you've fucked up.

[@cbpd89]

I would be way more inclined to holding my peers to a high standard, since their negligence reflects poorly on everyone. It's one thing to make a mistake when you're tired, stressed, or just human. It's another thing entirely to be under the influence, commit fraud, assault, or not follow the basic rules and prep for a procedure.

[@ZackC]

Because it doesn’t start with “Bruce killed ten toddlers and covered it up,” it starts with “Bruce is a dedicated worker who made a completely understandable mistake.” Ten years later, you’ve seen Bruce do amazing things, never heard of or seen another mistake, and then out of nowhere you hear he killed ten toddlers. Surely that isn’t really what happened? You know this guy. There must be something going on.

[@dianekim6893]

Because they don’t see patients as human beings

[@JYoutubes10]

I just had surgery through Mercy on Thursday. Every time I was moved into a new room, I had to tell the doctors/nurses what procedures I was having. Turns out that was a good thing, because the doctors had the wrong procedures listed 3 separate times in their records. After the surgery was over, I asked if everything had gone ok; they told me they only had record of one procedure and I needed to call the surgeon over to ensure he had actually completed both things. The estimate I was originally given only listed one procedure, but then 2 days before surgery I was given another estimate for 3x the price that listed both. I could go on, but the amount of miscommunication and confusion among the staff was legitimately frightening going into surgery. I did not trust those people with my care.

[@DK-zu6tt]

I broke my leg badly in Dec. 2015 (Gnarly spiral (jagged) break, both tib/fib clean through--nothing connecting my knee to my ankle but soft tissue). Mercy medical botched my surgery in 1,000 ways, and I had to fight Mercy to get the care I needed to fix their mess so I had the chance to walk normal again. They tried in for weeks to block my care. I had a right with my insurance company to pick any specialist I wanted in-network and Mercy would not let me. After weeks (and more healing of my bones in the very wrong position--which was their mistake), I finally got the specialist I deserved and they had to rebreak my leg, bore out my bone larger and replace the rod with a bigger one. I could go on and on, but the short answer is Mercy messed up in very egregious ways, ethically and medically and I could have sued their socks off for malpractice easily. I always tell my husband that if we are in a fiery car crash and I am lying on the pavement bleeding, I refuse care if my only option is a Mercy facility. I'd rather take my chances bleeding on the pavement.

[@JYoutubes10]

@@DK-zu6tt I'm sorry that happened to you. Hopefully something will be done about our healthcare system before too long. Also hoping you had a full recovery!

[@brandon6347]

Omg stfu noone cares

[@emmamoulton3834]

Personally I’d also like to know what proportion of the other 50% of cases not by “bad doctors” were due to 80+ hour weeks, chronic sleep deprivation, and burnout.

[@elisabetcarlson4882]

They are a danger to the patients. They should take time off. There is a culture at the top promoting their hospital as one that can handle it all. They are not being honest with their communities. They are a danger too.

[@emmamoulton3834]

I agree. What I mean is that’s the reality of residency and it absolutely shouldn’t be expected because it’s not safe. There isn’t the option to just not work 80 hour weeks in the vast majority of programs. The culture and more importantly the laws need to change. Personally my favorite example to compare to is aviation, where pilots have a very strict maximum of 1000 flight hours per year (1/4 of most residency programs) and extra redundancies during “the window of circadian low” because that is what has been proven to be safe.

[@D-OveRMinD]

This is the same with any other profession that is responsible for tons of lives. Think pilots and air traffic controllers.

[@luiggitello8546]

There must be a horrible extra toll to basically have colleges working against you in your quest to save lives

[@mohamedbenhamida5652]

Judged by their peers to be an immediate threat isn't regular exhaustion. If a doctor has made mistakes because of exhaustion he will most likely not face consequences and even if he did it would be in an extreme case where he had a choice.

[@joshgoldenberg4398]

“7 years is just 7 years, but it’s also 6,000 years” is low key relatable

[@nicholasfarrell5981]

Yeah. yeah

[@j.dunlop8295]

Doctor's are "practicing" what part of practicing are you confused about?😅😂😮 OH!

[@marvwatkins7029]

He could have expressed it better.

[@TheVeemon]

2020 looked like it never ended

[@Error_404-F.cks_Not_Found]

@@TheVeemontruth.

[@juliafritz9248]

It is worse than you think. For every complaint, there are probably 100 to 1000 errors and malpractice that gets ignored or even protected by staff. This is even worse in poorer rural communities. We had a horrible unethical surgeon that was chief of staff. We have to go 150 miles to get better medical care.

[@Rsadidit]

As an MD myself I can tell you that’s absolute non sense. We have peer review boards, morbidity and mortality conferences, safety checks on medication administration and internal anonymous reporting systems all in place

[@DannyD-lr5yg]

@@RsadiditWell at least we can be certain you’re not PsyD, cause you clearly don’t understand human beings’ capacity to be shady, unethical, and avoid consequences 😂

[@AbsentWithoutLeaving]

@@Rsadidit - And yet, here we are, talking about this very subject after listening to John's story citing specific incidents.

[@RaptorNX01]

not to mention all the cases where patient's families just didn't pursue legal action because of their emotional states at the time, or lack of confidence then anything would happen, or simply lack of proof. both my mom and my grandmother died due to screw ups by their respective medical caregivers. we were so focused on our own grief, plus all the bs that goes along with someone's death and other issues that we just didn't bother and in both cases there was a long build up to those deaths.

[@thec9424]

​@Ravi-did-it I have no idea why you would say something so stupid, but people don't hate doctors. They hate bad doctors. If you did more to get rid of the latter, you wouldn't have to be here sounding like a complete ignoramus.

[@Piketom1]

"The white coat code of silence." That reminds me of something, cough *law enforcement* cough.

[@ryanwalker4660]

they were white coats...

[@CVB6]

As a medical student one thing I see the most during my rotation is my residents calling the insurance for a peer to peer to request the insurance to not deny the basic medication to keep them healthy. It’s honestly scary.

[@peterwilliams2887]

I don’t think most people understand that without readily available drugs the entire workforce is crippled which is why this still being allowed to run rampant boggles my mind

[@noreenconstantine4612]

Insurance companies are the real powers in the country

[@jeremycurrie1487]

Unionize

[@yuvra649]

Kept happening with my colleague. Insurance kept denying ultrasound and other tests for months. His neighbors offered to host him in India, while he got his medical tests and other care done. He went to one of the top hospitals in india, got tested, diagnosed, etc. while spending under his annual deductible. 🤷‍♀️

[@KGisthename]

​@@yuvra649India and her doctors make it possible for many Americans to get life saving procedures done. I thank them for saving my beloved uncles life. Despite our best efforts his insurance refused to approve it. He is alive and well living with a transplanted kidney today.

[@ironmask5308]

We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.

[@diannebaker8263]

Where have I heard this before ? 🤔 😂

[@DebbieStOnge]

😂😢 so true

[@SlickSimulacrum]

Neoliberals - "Let all these great companies self regulate. The market knows best."

[@trulio_]

case dismissed. bring in the dancing lobsters!

[@BertPFISTER]

That sounds like the police department also!

[@MSWMW]

I have always been surprised to find that medical boards don't always check OTHER state medical boards for issues with physicians they license. It can't be that hard but they won't go through the steps. As physicians, we literally have to check boxes and report any issues related to our license in the past. If one lies on the application, it should be easy to find out and that should be a huge red flag. Like any profession, there are bound to be bad eggs. It is just a fact of life. These boards need to be held accountable for not doing their job.

[@sachadee.6104]

same happens with suspended/fired law enforcement officers, for instance because they were corrupt.

[@deirdregilbert3203]

It is not that the states don't know what they are getting. If the state that harbored the physician and did not report it in the database, then they have no legal standing to keep them from practicing. It was stated by Arkansas medical board after I filed a complaint with the state that the doctor could turn around and sue them, since there isn't any documentation in the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)

[@hew195050]

Except we’re not talking about a bad car mechanic here. These are doctors treating peoples mothers, children, spouses. The bar is too low.

[@aesea57804]

They carry HIPPA secrecy to everything. They probably feel it’s beneath their honored status as physicians to have e their shortcomings talked about in an un-supportive way. Sharing their violations with other states would violate their interpretation of (made-up) professional HIPPA.

[@davidhollenshead4892]

Agreed: As a patient I have to deal with the presumption that I had sued for malpractice effecting my medical care. Despite that I didn't sue because it can affect your ability to get medical care in the future... A physician working for the University of Michigan Hospital wrote "young male seeking pain drugs for nefariousness purposes..... faking pain symptoms" on my chart" in his attempt to prevent another physician from discovering that he made my condition worse. As he had a physical therapist use traction on me when I actually needed emergency back surgery. So a bone fragment got wedged into the nerve root channel for L4 on the left while in traction. I had been "turfed" from a private hospital for "insufficient coverage", the reason that emergency surgery had not been performed at said private hospital. Had he opened the envelope containing the X-rays showing that L1, L3, L4, & L5 were broken, as I had four vertebrae broken by a habitual drunk drivers fourth injury accident... My surgeon got me scheduled for surgery in less than a week after first being introduced to him, and he also visited that University of Michigan physician so he could cold clock him and tell him to "resign your medical licence within two weeks" which he did. It turned out that the University of Michigan Hospital would hire the drunks & idiots who had been trained by the University of Michigan Medical School to keep their stats up. Meaning they hired them so they could say that 99.x% of the doctors we trained are working in their specialty....

[@BebeChan]

As a young and inexperienced doctor, THANK YOU for this episode ! Like you said, it is a unique field based on trust .. and 1 experience with a bad doctor can really break that bond for a patient forever regardless of how many good doctors they encounter after :(

[@searchingfororion]

I don't know what your specialty (if you have one or not) is, what state you work in, or what level of interaction you're able to have as the only information I have is your self description, but I want to tell you something; I'm a CPP. I have horror stories from essentially every type of specialty and sub specialty not to mention PCPs. I also do volunteer patient advocacy for a nonprofit. I give this background because I want you to know I speak from *extensive* and varied experience (of myself and others): I *personally* and many others would actually be - and typically are - relieved to have a young "inexperienced" doctor. Especially those of us with medical trauma, less common conditions, or overall a bit more care. Why? Because "inexperienced" doctors are *new* doctors. A *lot* of the problems patients like myself and those I help encounter/ed are due to overconfidence, blanket treatments ("I always/never do xyz for..."), outdated techniques/ignorance to new developments, and essentially lazy pathology. Some of the most genuine *care* I've had was done by interns or literal students. I'm *heard* - data is reviewed not skimmed over or skipped. Options are explored and *explained* ect... What I'm saying is: I am one of those patients with broken trust and I work closely with others, *yet* - I can tell by the genuine compassion in your comment that, given the opportunity it's people like you who can help people like myself and those I assist start to feel hopeful again. Please don't lose that trait. In many situations compassion is worth far more than years. *That* can change lives. I promise you. I've seen and experienced it. Don't let "more experienced" colleagues dishearten you about that or field time. I know this was long and your time is valuable. I just wanted you to know that the fact that you *truly* care - especially enough not to be jaded or dismissive of the *other* types of pain patients have experienced that may make them "difficult" is an asset and there are and will be those who see and appreciate that. With upmost sincerity, thank you.

[@BebeChan]

@@searchingfororion This is very beautifully written and coming from a beautiful soul! Thank you for taking the time. I promise to always return to it (copied it into my ‘notes to self’ note in my iPhone!) please don’t stop doing your very important work!

[@bane2201]

@@searchingfororion Totally agreed! I've been in and out of doctors for a long time (God gave me 1 STR and CON when he made my stat sheet). I've had many older doctors who would be in the room for 5 minutes (tops), and leave so fast that I thought they sensed I had questions and ran before I could ask. It's super annoying. Due to that, I've had to take comical amounts of notes about my health, read 500+ papers on medicine and several textbooks, etc. I've gotten the majority of my diagnoses correct, but my doctors tended to ignore that. (Ironically, I'm not becoming a doctor, but I am going into an adjacent field because reading all those papers made me think "this area is cool!") Then I started seeing more younger doctors, who slowed down, listened to my symptoms, considered my theories, and have generally been _far_ better at diagnosing, informing, and treating me. (I'm not saying that because they agreed with me - I was wrong several times!) A really important trait that I've seen more in younger doctors is intellectual humility. A lot of the older ones tended to be very arrogant and preferred to guess than say "I don't know". But at least 2/3 of the papers I've read were written after (e.g.) 2010, and some of my doctors had been practicing for decades then. Given how much research there that didn't exist in 2010 (let alone when they started), saying "I don't know" is crucial. Anyway, that was a bit long-winded, but completely agreed with you on all points! (Somehow the way I wrote that makes me sound like a 70-year-old talking about whippersnappers these days, but I'm only 28.)

[@Anibal-h2j]

TYVM John Oliver for once again reporting the NEWS better than TV News stations in USA. It's so sad when a comedian does better research than TV News......GREAT JOB.

[@kuma4590]

My dad was disabled because of a doctor. It was clearly their error but no repercussions. His primary care physician warned him that they constantly cover each others tracks (he was unrelated to the incident, and I'm sure didn't do this underhanded stuff since he spoke of it openly).

[@Sammasambuddha]

Spoke openly of crimes but you're sure he's clean. Trump!

[@bunk95]

Doctors are fictional.

[@pendlera2959]

@@Sammasambuddha He spoke openly of how others get away with crimes. Just because he knows something shady is going on doesn't mean he's a part of it.

[@leehurst172]

My mom instilled in me very young to "never leave anyone you love alone in a hospital." It is so, so true...

[@57trensota75]

John Oliver, you are amazing! You hit a home run every time you take a swing, and in an entertaining, easy to understand format!!

[@totally_a_real_account7902]

Now, I know I’ve been critical of the navy suit/tie combo before, talking about how it blends in with the background and feels too serious, but this?? The pop of the delightful light pink shirt, matched with the patterned tie, draws in the eye and intrigues the listener. I am such a fan of this splash of color to bring out the tones of the classic suit color. This is how you dress John Oliver and deserves a clear 10/10.

[@michaeltudyk8660]

We're talking about medical boards.

[@grayhatjen5924]

Yeah, but in this moment, I, for one, will take both.

[@PeaceJourney...]

That is an astute observation. Thank you, I had to go back to check it out and indeed the shirt is a delightful splash of color that draws one in to admire the textures upon the necktie. A refreshment upon the dreary truths we have all come here to collectively mourn each week. Have a nice day 🙂

[@elpulpo800]

That shirt looks lavender to me. Not pink.

[@grayhatjen5924]

@@elpulpo800 Ya know what? It kind of does. Either way, still love it.

[@NitroDS]

so out of 100 doctors there are 2 malignant practitioners who are a nightmare to 100 of thousands of people and damages... and only one of them faces consequences. thats fucking crazy

[@GSBarlev]

Literal meaning of "one bad apple spoils the bunch."

[@eragonawesome]

Not quite, it's for *every* 100 doctors there are 2 bad ones, and those bad ones collectively cause that much harm, not individually

[@katalac]

You are so good at what you do, John ❤

[@liftordietrying]

Honestly, that's probably better than many other professions. That said, wtf just fucking do better across the board.

[@petrify4814]

Yeah, but most other professionals aren't responsible for saving people's lives CONSTANTLY

[@Dr._Squid]

John, we need a story on the current insurance situation in the US. We pay all this money to use our insurance, but we are constantly being denied the right to use it when "they" don't deem it "necessary". We need to take back our power and stop paying for a scam. Look up the original reason for healthcare insurance and then help explain why it currently sucks. Please, educate us... Great show, I learn from every episode! Thank you!

[@TheCityCesspool]

In coming long comment on this, it's just a little taste of the bs that goes on behind the scenes with medical insurance, I hope you find it interesting (I'm gonna make a separate post on this too): It's just as you say. I used to work with auths. It was for a hospital's ER or urgent case patients who get sent upstairs to be inpatients. It was all about verifying insurance and start authorization processes. We had to know in what way to report the patient being admitted, how quickly it needed to be done, and do it correctly after verifying the patient's coverage. And for most insurances, they're all different in that process. Mind you, the only insurance that absolutely never required an auth is Medicare. So then clinicians on our end and clinicians on the insurance's end receive and exchange this information. Now even when the authorization (auth) is granted, that's still "no guarantee of payment," it's simply the insurance company saying "yeah ok we think this is medically necessary" but there's more hoops with billing and coding and other factors to make sure they'll actually pay out what the patient's contract stipulates. One little wrong move and they can deny payment. I worked next to the auth team for outpatient testing (MRI, CT, etc). Patient would get their appointment scheduled. Schedulers are to do that at least 2 weeks out even if there is room to schedule earlier. Why? So that there's time to get the auth. It will be the referring doctor's office who need to obtain that auth from the insurance. The hospital's team checks on it and when the auth is obtained, they put it in the medical records which allows the test to proceed on the appointment day. But all too often, those offices wouldn't get it on time. I've never known why, be it laziness from them or some bs on the insurance's part. Regardless, that meant the hospital auth team often would have to call the patient notifying them they had to reschedule, often at the last minute. I was always mad at that- the doctor's office people should be the ones to notify the patient of that- they're the ones who screwed up. I once had a woman call about a procedure she'd had months back. She received an astronomical bill for it. When she called insurance, they told her our facility (hospital) was out of network so she was billed as such. Worse, I wasn't part of the team that should be able to help. Patients often don't receive the right number to call and part of that is because half the time even /we/ aren't sure of the place they need to call, that's often why people get the run around on the phone. Anyway, I luckily somehow had the time to help right then. I KNEW we were in network with that insurance for a fact. Thanks to being a provider, I could call on that line which is easier to get someone. She told me the same thing but I insisted, I knew better. She then agreed with me after checking again (who knows if that was what she did) and said they'd rebill to us and then the patient for in network status. I relayed this information to the billing team, and even their lead was made aware of it, I got her extension. Lastly I called the estimations team, and got an approximation of what the bill should now be. So I called the patient back as requested. Told her all of this, gave her the phone numbers needed if her next bill is still weird so she could talk directly to the needed people, and that's it. I hope it did turn out well. Technically speaking, that's me going above and beyond, even though it should simply be a normal thing (being that it really isn't my 'department' to do that). Unfortunately, I was quite sure if I didn't do it, she'd probably not get the optimal service needed because she'd keep getting transferred because sometimes we don't know who people should talk to either in certain/specific circumstances especially.

[@firstmkb]

The original reason for healthcare insurance was to get around wage caps during WW II. The price distortions as a result of that include medical school tuition costs, doctor wages, extremely convoluted billing, hospital markups to cover uninsured treatment costs, while uninsured people pay the highest prices for medicine. There’s too much money involved to make meaningful reforms - even before the political parties get involved.

[@animeartist888]

THIS. I recently had to do a lot of testing to find out why I was having debilitating off and on upper abdominal pain and what could be done about it. Out of roughly 2K in bills from doctor visits, bloodwork, an MRI, an upper endoscopy, and a ultrasound, you want to know how much my insurance covered? 63 bucks. I'm not exaggerating. I'm in almost 1400 USD of medical debt after the providers all marked the prices down when my insurance refused to pay anything. This insurance costs 350 bucks per month. I have one single prescription medication that costs 30 bucks without insurance. So, I would've been better financially to be completely uninsured for the whole year and pay for my medicine out of pocket. Especially since most providers will give severely reduced prices to patients who don't have insurance. Louder for the people in the back: It would legitimately have *saved me money if I had no insurance at all* for an entire year due to a single condition that happened in about October. Mind you, it also took so fucking long to find out what was wrong and prepare a treatment plan, that my gallstones all passed on their own. I didn't even bother scheduling the treatment because I known damn good and well my insurance will let me down again. What is even the point?! The American healthcare system is absolute garbage!

[@jonadams5547]

I agree, medical insurance in the US is totally a scam. It's horrible that it's been allowed by our country to continue this way.

[@narsimhareddy7409]

I would really love to see a cover story on health insurance, and the efficacy of this system in providing health care solutions for the poor and those who need it.

[@kekinshtein4912]

I started my career in healthcare when I turned 18 as a nursing assistant in skilled nursing. I’m 25 now working in radiology and waiting for X-ray school. I’ve worked with some phenomenal doctors and I’ve worked with doctors who willingly and regularly disregarded sterile technique during sterile procedures. I haven’t had a long career, going on 7 years. But I’ve seen some truly appalling things. Most of my colleagues have been and continue to be amazing people and care providers, but being in a position to provide life altering if not potentially life saving care and disregarding the most basic practices in favor of shortcuts or negligence shouldn’t be allowed in a field like healthcare. It’s scary.

[@Wolfencreek]

Dear Business Daddy HBO Please upload these on Mondays again

[@Alienlover859]

They're still availiable on torrent sites on Mondays.

[@Gareethtw]

@@Alienlover859 Stealing content you enjoy though does tend to mean that moat shows are terrible

[@eileennovak1656]

As a person fighting cancer, I've been endlessly frustrated over the systematic lack of transparency in all areas of medicine. Good luck researching which hospitals are worse than others, and doctor competency. It's easier to find enriched plutonium than information.

[@ceofounder]

Thank you so much Mr. Oliver for highlighting this most serious topic of health and the United States Medical system! Some of these individuals should have never been issued medical licenses!

[@kylebowles9820]

I've learned that "the process" is code for "stop thinking, reasoning, or asking, and do what I say"

[@p.s.7859]

John Oliver - you Sir, are a treasure!

[@preshisify1]

💯

[@jai-kk5uu]

So if after seeing this episode i don't want black doctor am i racist. New fear: dancing doctor.😊

[@sarcastaball]

@@jai-kk5uuwe’re all racists

[@rebeccagrotta510]

Have you been knighted, Mr. Oliver?

[@n.v.9000]

No... we Europiens think he is quite stupid and are glad he found someone on his own lvl to play with... he will never be a Sir as he is a sell out

[@AethonRose]

My dad's previous doctor got his license taken away for malpractice and when my father went in for a checkup with his new doctor he told my dad that what his previous doctor was prescribing him could have easily killed him as the 2 medications didn't interact well together.

[@KLTer-jo9jy]

that's why it is important to always double check and ask the pharmacist for interactions.

[@mattdouplesx]

What was he scripted if you don't mind me asking?

[@nervousbreakdown711]

Bruh I got gaslit by my old psychiatrist because she gave me Serotonin Syndrome and then she told me it was my fault because my body just didn’t react well to the meds she prescribed

[@kaemincha]

Pharmacist should have also been doing a better job too (ofc as well as the doctor)!!!

[@bunk95]

Doctors are fictional. One my my human slave marketed as your Dad is being abused and/or tortured and/or killed?

[@lizarognas1729]

At age 62, I grew up with doctors I respected. As a state employee in WA state, being pushed into hedge-fund owned large "medical" providers, I resent that nurses and doctors are forced to work for organizations that put profits first; that refuse basic care because they're in-league with insurance companies. I agree, federal oversight. But really? We need National health care. My partner was in an emergency room, gurney, for 3 days before a hospital room opened up last August. During those 3 days, the ER was flooded with fentanyl and meth overdoses and deaths. Not enough nurses, not enough doctors. Given the overwhelming conditions we encountered, doctors and nurses really followed-up. Too much corporate control of medical boards, insurance commissioners, hospital and eldercare and urgent care facilities.

[@karld001]

Doctors protect their own, cops protect their own, politicians protect their own, sounds like we have a problem with those who are charged with helping the people of this country 🤔

[@brbl415]

it's a club. people like to think if they did something wrong they would be protected.

[@456MrPeople]

The thing is professional fields like law and medicine require a lot of prerequisite knowledge that the general public doesn't have to be able to come to an objective conclusion about a situation. That's not to say that there shouldn't be any representation of the general public in investigations like these, rather there needs to be a balance like the 75/25 split suggested by FSMB.

[@Darksnowman13]

Last Week Tonight is great at looking at a world on fire and constantly eating at my mental well being, and adding one more thing to worry about. Still love it, don't get me wrong

[@Chris_Mascott]

As a surgeon working in the US but having worked in a total of 8 countries nobody seems to address the Elephant in the room… State Medical Boards??? There should be Federal standard and get rid of all the State boards in favor of a single universal national standard. If States with better standards think others would drag them down, just set higher standards. There are no State medical boards in Switzerland, UK, Germany, France, Spain etc!

[@kimclarke5018]

Agreed for a single board overseeing but as a nurse there should be a single board overseeing nurses. It’s utterly ridiculous and and far better way to prevent wrongdoers from practicing. That way they can’t go state to state.

[@IntrovertedBear]

I think it would be cheaper for medical providers too. If you have multiple state licenses, you have to pay each state for that license.

[@hellyan35867]

Totally agree. It’s very ridiculous

[@mswen1983]

The UK, Switzerland, Germany, etc are all technically "states." I don't think it would go over too well if the EU tried to standardize medicine across Europe.

[@Chris_Mascott]

@@mswen1983 first of all Europe is not a country and European countries are not « States ». Secondly, there are reciprocal gréements treaties n the EU for medical Credentialing.

[@SnowWhiteRaven]

We discovered during a mal practice case that reporting to the board is self reporting. The doctor in our case had killed people in 4 other states, lost his license in 2 states, and was still operating in the state we were in where he had multiple reports of misconduct. At the end of our trial he was not going to lose his license despite my sister dying due to his negligence. As part of the settlement my parents fought for him to surrender his license which he did, but that doesn’t stop him from getting his license back or going to another state and getting a license there. There needs to be massive change in boards including your entire medical record following you state to state and having offenses in other states play into new state licensure.

[@JE-dv2ms]

If doctors were federally regulated like pilots or train conductors are, maybe medical errors would be as rare as airplane crashes.

[@erinbrooks4149]

Thanks John Oliver for bringing to light yet another great story!

[@McCheeseincakes]

Why is it that we absolutely can't get a handle of accountability on those in the most important positions!?

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Because importance and power go hand in hand. Power means you decide who gets held accountable for things, and there's an incentive to do whatever is in your own power to PREVENT yourself from being held accountable for your own actions.

[@desperadox7565]

Money💰

[@SinNeighbor]

Agreed about money and power. Hard to knock kings off their thrones

[@far2ez]

Because people in important positions are powerful due to their positions? Because that practically by definition, valuable/important positions are held by the relatively few capable of holding them effectively? Because such people - people too vital to be replaced and running something too important to fail - are beyond scrutiny for anything that isn't excessive? I mean, obviously.

[@sachadee.6104]

💲💲💲💲💲💲

[@SeptemberMeadows]

I'm a retired cosmetologist and I just want to compliment the work that Mr. Oliver's hair dresser did before this video. Looks great, excellent work 🤩

[@bigbaddawg101]

When I was a teenager, me and my mom had the same doctor. He turned out to be one of those "pharma bros" who prescribed OxyContin for everything instead of actually treating patients. At 14 he prescribed me an entire bottle for my knee pain. I had one and I was done with bottle. My mother wasn't as fortunate. She was diabetic and had problems with her shoulders after having surgery, to which he prescribed Oxy. Instead of treating her diabetes or anything other health problems, he just kept prescribing Oxy. Until one day, when I was 15, she died in her sleep from kidney failure. The doctor was about to get his medical license pulled and brought up with a medical malpractice lawsuit, but he fled the state. Currently, he is working as a doctor at a clinic in Phoenix.

[@breakingbadheisenberg9703]

I'm so sorry .

[@yvonneschermerhorn866]

Thank you for sharing. It is so sad!😢

[@breakingbadheisenberg9703]

One doctor told my mom there was nothing wrong with her - told her it was anxiety, prescribed opiods , she didn't have it filled , her 1 good kidney was failing, her primary doctor over prescribed pills to the point she had to be hospitalized to clean out all the drugs in her system. On a humorous note she threw up in Walmart. The meat department. 🤭

[@fofopads4450]

I cannot imagine how bad my revenge would be. I hope you are better than me.

[@DARWINZOO]

​@breakingbadheisenberg9703 medical community doesn't respect women, cause we're all hysterical anxiety bad reporters of our bodies

[@samredbird4225]

Nurse in my facility bounced from place to place, after multiple errors and sleeping on the job. Turns out she wasn’t a nurse, just stole someone’s identity. Ohio has only one identifier, name. If name matches a nurses name, congratulations, you too can be a nurse! And, yes, not a damn thing happened to her when she was found out.

[@thehumantoeRD]

My wife and I both work in the medical field this just scratches the surface. My wife and I have a list of physicians that WILL NOT touch either of us if we end up in the hospital. Its pretty worrying stuff to say the least...

[@thehumantoeRD]

@BoggleMeBog That would be ill-advised since we work for the hospital that covers for the crappy physicians. If it got back to us, we would be fired and probably blacklisted from other hospitals. Unfortunately, there are always a few of those physicians at every hospital.

[@lindenshepherd6085]

If you have a trusted friend, ask them to maybe post it anonymously?

[@JRSiebz]

That frozen chest CPR is like a no budget version of "The Thing"

[@carlvoth129]

We have "The Thing" at home

[@makatron]

Without the "let's eat hands" part

[@StrikeWarlock]

Thought the same thing lmao.

[@Plaidman86]

I was expecting that scene to come up next!!!

[@Sammasambuddha]

Ima gonna practice on a frozen chicken. Hang on. I broke my wrists.

[@BrentWigginsWords]

Dr. Oliver gives us the best medicine: laughter with a dose of truth.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

That is, after all, the best copium in the world. No one likes a stoic messenger. But if they get entertained by a bloody jongleur, well hell's bells, Margaret... very well, we ACCEPT your bleak yet boisterous pontifications about society's problems. 😁 I kinda like it. A little cheese to go with the whine, ya know? 💪😎✌️ 🥂 Santé! 🥂

[@vebdaklu]

Except that saps the energy out of real solutions, because your indignation and revolt is softened by the comedic tone. Remember, John Oliver works for a huge private media company - they are the last ones you should expect to solve your problems, or even properly inform you on them.

[@Kevin_2435]

All these years I've been pining for the love of that man. Alas, I am not a horse.

[@AnnoyingMoose]

This all reminds me of the classic joke "Q: What's the difference between a doctor and God? A: God knows that He's not a doctor."

[@walkingstick6655]

You need to look at the FSMB, Federation of State Medical Boards. You might also want to start taking a look at the medical specialty boards' recertification/maintenance of certification processes/standards for the vast majority of physicians who specialize.

[@seantlewis376]

I've spent decades working with attorneys. When I look up an attorney on the State Bar website, I can easily see all claims and actions brought against them with the results of each claim, their current status, and if they had ever been suspended or disciplined. That doctors do not have this sort of transparency is disturbing.

[@deborahshallin5843]

Actually you can look up physicians on their state medical boards.

[@elisabetcarlson4882]

In Hospitals many of them do not wear name tags, some travel with another doctor or in a group, they work a few days and they their off for 3 weeks. (They may work at another hospital) They don't take notes and don't note allergies, and when they walk out of the room, they leave it all behind. What a dangerous situation we are in

[@sceachain]

Scott Jensen - ran for governor in MN. Didnt lose his license after his craziness during Covid. Says all I need to know about State Medical Board here. .

[@jeremiahwhan]

It also says a lot about your state. Period.

[@mzunnurain]

My great grandfather pretended to be a doctor in Minneapolis until the 1940's.

[@christib8744]

And I'm sure good ol' mother Mayo doesn'y have any sneaky fingers in that board to "help" /s ..... I might miss living in MN for a whole host of other reasons but gawd damn am I glad to be away from Mayo.

[@neilparikh8041]

I'm a general surgery resident, and the lack of accountability we have within our own profession has always astounded and disgusted me In residency, even obviously poorly performing residents who may have harmed patients are protected, since their program is required to allow them to remediate for a very long time and document their consistent failings before being able to let them go. Often, programs will instead chose to push them through or transfer them elsewhere rather than face the "inconveniences" of safeguarding our profession. In surgery, this is especially scary, as we are knowingly empowering future doctors to cause patient harm. This post has inspired me to join a state medical board to be one of the doctors who is advocating for patient care and appropriately harsher sentencing for doctors.

[@catherinefisher2896]

Oh great. I live in Texas and feel I have an already too long of a list that leaves me sleepless. Thanks for the insomnia , John.

[@Aahzsome]

Maybe take care of yourself by not watching any of this for a while? Or help yourself feel better by finding ways you can take action/contribute in a meaningful way to addressing some of this. It is serious and important to know, but don't burn yourself out!

[@sambeatty2312]

The casual Kissinger diss was appreciated

[@shaamao]

Is that funny for you? I don't get it. If I make a same meme on Elizabeth II are you appreciating it in the same way?

[@minepagan5300]

@@shaamao Yes.

[@sambeatty2312]

@@shaamao Not as much for Elizabeth, she didn't commit nearly as many crimes against humanity. Watch a video about Kissinger if you need to know why he was so evil. I lit up a cigar when I found out he died and I don't even smoke.

[@sambeatty2312]

@@minepagan5300 🤣

[@TheOriginalKazooMaster]

Lmao you really tried to turn it around and then used a literal colonizer

[@aas55]

Was really hoping this would be another chance to see the One Tree Hill dog eating the heart scene

[@carinmiller9211]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@Zierfish]

Same! So disappointing

[@jonesaholic]

that was amazing

[@Dronebertios_World]

These issues are the symptom of having 50 state governments and no national authority over things like medical licensure boards, state insurance boards, etc...

[@angeladoll9785]

Bingo! Our unhealthy obsession with states rights & a small federal govt is literally killing us in this way & SO many more!

[@kaemincha]

So real. There is no control of quality.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

Yup. Just like A.I., crime & punishment, and many other concerns... a GLOBAL committee and a worldwide set of procedures plus checks & balances should be implemented. They *won't* be, but hey... it's worth typing. 🙂

[@Goatbeez]

Boom- diagnosed, America 😂

[@mymindraces6801]

That's not the problem. Every state could pass that kind of legislation tomorrow. The key problem here is a lack of funding. Accountability requires a lot of funding and resources.

[@ginamanon3307]

As nurse in IL, I saw these types of docs everywhere! It’s disgusting how often they get away with BS. I hope something is done asap!

[@Riley0509]

So any advice for people on how to avoid these bad actors?

[@kimclarke5018]

@@Riley0509 the fact is it seems nurses in the US are far more tracked than physicians which is shocking to me as a nurse. You can look up any nurse in the US and see if she/he has any dings on their licenses. It’s very hard to get a job as a registered nurse if there is any misconduct of any kind. Can’t believe that doctors don’t have the same system

[@landonksmith9916]

I’m a phlebotomist of 13 years and worked in Drs offices my whole career. Doctors can be the most pompous, entitled, rude, nonchalant people on earth. But a good doctor is priceless and a godsend

[@IllemDaFunk]

Enough to motivate me to work towards joining my state's medical board. No one should be allowed to skirt accountability or protect bad actors.

[@searchingfororion]

I just wanted to say how awesome you are and *this* is the type of thinking - and action - those capable should be doing when presented with information like this. It's one thing to make comments about how wrong something is, it's completely different to actually take steps to make a change.

[@pcarebear1]

I worked at the NPDB as a dispute case worker (review practitioners disputes against their reports) and it was the one job that made drinking very tempting (FYI I don't like liquor). The Hospitals are notorious at under reporting and prevent reporting by doing things like suspension of 29 days instead of 30 (due to the rules they have to report suspensions of 30 days). A lot of Hospital Boards don't want the legal costs of reporting docs and losing the $ a doctor brings to the hospital. I saw docs with SEVERE emotional/mental behaviors that I had to get fed govt security involved. I don't trust medical people anymore 😅 IHS and DoD had the worst reports I ever read (due to being federal, we couldn't do anything about their reporting) thank you JO for addressing this for the public.

[@sachadee.6104]

and again..... it's all about money. For share holders 🤮

[@publius9350]

As a former prosecutor for the Florida Department of Health, John is actually downplaying the issue. Some specializations are particularly unregulated as the board might have a urologist and two primary care doctors determining the skill of a psychiatrist. Are there deaths? How could there not be?

[@OneHalfSaint]

Came here to say basically this same thing as a social worker.

[@emilypaterson4925]

Denmark and some other countries have patient safety models that work much better at a fraction of the cost.

[@cooky2991]

Had a lot of bad medical experiences over the years, from doctors who didn't believe pain, to one doing a blood pressure test instead of an asthma test when I complained about nearly passing out from lack of air when doing exercise. Took me 4 more years to get that thing diagnosed, 7 years after I developed it. Absolutely wild

[@bunk95]

A slave was, most likely, tortured into appearing to/sounding like they were reciting medical information to you?

[@pendlera2959]

@@bunk95 Are you high?

[@rawilliams5881]

I had one miss a torn ACL and tibia fracture, tell me it was all in my head, offer me opioids "for the pain", approve me for a sports tournament two weeks down the road, and send me a bill for $500.

[@DK-zu6tt]

Cooky, are you by chance female? There is thing that doctors were taught years ago, but some are likely still taught today. It's a "WW" label. It means: "Whiny Woman," It's a real thing.

[@hereitis.2587]

7-16-2020 a harmless cyst was removed from the back of my neck. I felt the dermatologist hit nerve four times. It felt like chewing foil with fillings. Very sharp. Very electrifying. I haven’t been the same since. It was exactly four years since I last worked because of lockdown started 3-16-2020. Thankfully I got my disability the first time mere days before I lived in a minivan. Now gratefully I live in a housing project with 40+ neighbors that are somewhere in their journeys and struggles. Just imagine. Just imagine. One minute your fine, the next your a crazy person that can’t figure out how to turn the electricity off. I tried to sue for medical malpractice yet there is a law that covered the doctors that unless they did something purposefully negligent like leaving a sponge inside my body or carving their initials into me there was nothing I could do. Just imagine. I couldn’t think and my whole world was falling apart as everyone else was going back to life. Just imagine. Then, 10-10-2024 finally, I got a epidural in my neck and it changed my life. I can kinda think now. And function. Kinda. Just imagine. I almost lived in a minivan.

[@kasa9884]

I love John Oliver's show and appreciate him addressing state boards and the larger topic, but his staff missed the ball by quoting the widely debunked Johns Hopkins study. I study health disparities and it is NOT the 3rd leading cause of deaths in the US nor anywhere near the top 5, nor top 10. He did get it right that medical errors are usually unfortunately caused in large part systematic issues in healthcare systems, which need overhauling and better clinical policies that need close adherence to.

[@egx161]

Systemic.

[@judeu]

Yep thank you. Came here to say the same thing. That "study" is a joke.

[@peterwilliams2887]

maybe but Americans don’t get the threat unless it’s dramatized right in front of you

[@skydiveraj22]

I never pursued to profession of medicine and I couldn't help but draw parallels to my former career as a Naval Officer. We spent 95% of our time on 5% of our crew, much like how the media tends to focus on a tiny fraction of medical malpractice cases (In this case 98% to 2%). This highlights a need for greater accountability in medicine. It’s crucial to maintain the integrity of not only the medical profession but all professions of significance. Let's not lose sight of the vast majority who do their work honorably for the greater good. Appreciate the wisdom in understanding the full context and striving for excellence in every action.

[@healthysteph222]

Holy shit!! I was in a therapy group with Windelle (the dancing Dr.) after she got in trouble. I happened to see the story when the news broke about her back in 2019(?). I didn’t realize who she was at first, but was absolutely floored once I put two and two together. Even after getting caught, she literally took no ownership of the shit she did

[@louieberg2942]

Not taking ownership seems to be the crucial element for people who misbehave like that. If you were able to reflect and be honest with yourself, you would not behave like that doctor or any of the other repeat offender doctors. They do not care.

[@DK-zu6tt]

@@louieberg2942 Egotism. Pure and simple and yes, the women can have a "god" complex too.

[@yoch3258]

I ask for your prayers and healing vibes as I continue to face health challenges. Thank you for your support.

[@gilbertdare5921]

We are fortunate to have this man doing what he is doing! New subscriber!

[@C0C0L0QUIN]

Between the dog eating the donated heart, the iced man CPR and the wig scene, I'm convinced someone at the writing team spends all day watching medical dramas under the excuse of "doing research"

[@LARUM9316]

"You laughed too hard at that" You can tell that really got him, but it also truly was hilarious

[@KGisthename]

He got himself 😂

[@JemLeavitt]

This. Very important. Ty.

[@Vultite]

Ask anyone that has worked in healthcare, there's at least one bad doctor at every hospital that everyone knows about but nothing gets done. They really do cover for each other and it's sad

[@tracyaf6084]

Staff who complain about bad doctors often get targeted for reprisals themselves.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Finding a good person who works in the healthcare industry is a rarity.

[@bunk95]

Healthcare is fictional. Are you lying about my slaves while theyre abused and/or tortured and/or killed?

[@natedog24639]

As a doctor this needs to spread everywhere so hopefully change can happen.

[@Josh_2992]

My dad died when I was 4 years old because a doctor sent him home even though he was very clearly having a medical emergency. He had a heart attack right in front of me on the drive home. I can only imagine the number of people who've had their lives completely changed because a doctor was too tired or bored or maybe even just lazy. Not that my story 100% relates, but the system definitely needs to be fixed.

[@lifestream_real]

Thank you, so much, for making this video, and highlighting a very serious issue, within medicine! You are doing fantastic work!

[@georgemartin1498]

Excellent as always John and crew!! I was once acquainted with a middle aged man whose wife had recently died of cancer. I was acquainted with him because he was under my management and it was clear to me that he was just living out his remaining years earning whatever he could for as long as he could. At some point he offered his opinion that there are two “systems “ that you want to stay away from: the “legal” and the “medical”. Avail them as necessary, absolutely. My life was saved by medical professionals and I am grateful. But act proactively so to avoid.

[@Tonymontanayayo]

Absolutely one of the wisest comments I've read ever!

[@biscuitsmcgravy394]

This is a very deep topic that most people lack the attention span to truly understand. The current paradigm will never be improved and can only be replaced. Like so many other problems. It is not simply physicians protecting there own. It's a matter of everyone except the customer protecting their own self-interests. Lived it, managed it, cursed it, taught it. I simply practice and stick to my patients and what I can do for them. That's my own self-interest now.

[@tordb]

State Medical Boards and hospitals need to stop critically understaffing us.

[@GinEric84]

Where do you think this staff is going to come from?

[@thehelpfulshadow919]

​@@GinEric84Typically, when a place is understaffed it isn't because there is a lack of a hiring pool but because of cost cutting measures.

[@Virjunior01]

Walk out. Apparently South Korean doctors are doing something like that as the government isn't allowing extra licenses... they want like 4-5000, the government is only allowing 3000. End-stage capitalism.

[@garbageperson6310]

@@GinEric84there are more registered nurses in the country than ever before. The staffing “problem” comes from healthcare professionals being tired of putting up with bullshit. The younger generation of nurses is leaving the bedside in record numbers. Fix the administration issue and the staff comes back. Fix patients being over-the-top rude assholes and the staff comes back. The number of available staff isn’t the issue, it’s the modern healthcare system.

[@machsimillian14]

Hospitals are for profit, they're more worried about their bottom lines unfortunately

[@alex-cf4dy]

I reported a horrible ER doctor to my state medical board for patient abandonment (the doc told me nothing was wrong with me when I was far from OK) and the state medical board responded four months later with "sorry, we can't really do anything". This doctor had literally dozens of complaints about him that I found online. I know from firsthand experience how useless the state medical board can be.

[@Max-bi8fn]

If it’s not an emergency, it’s not the ER docs problem

[@OfficialYouTubeModerator]

Everyone may hate trial lawyers, but this video demonstrates while they're so essential.