Telling People You’re A Doctor Is Too Easy
People are bothered that I hammer the AMA or the AAFP or the ACP but I really don’t care. They pull in so much money and have agreed to EVERYTHING that has caused physician burnout. Now they want to fix our burnout and sell us courses to make more money off our backs. But you know what? I would be much more open to them if they would do one thing and that is to PROTECT our identities. And to do that they need to fight back against anyone else pretending to be doctors. it’s that simple.
It is very easy to con the public. Yesterday I showed how a journalist received a Top Doctor award from a scam company. Well, here is another one for you:
If you look up Dr. Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler online, you might think he hasa MD and a PhD from Harvard Medical School. He presents himself asthe chief of sexology at a non-profit health research foundation based in New York. His website states he’s one of the youngest elected members of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and that Barack Obama gave him a President’s Gold Service Award for his contributions in medicine and mental health.
Based on the information available online, Sendler could be one of the most accomplished 28-year-olds in medicine.
But he’s not. Those are all lies.
If you read the whole article you will be nauseated. This has got to stop. We need to protect the MD/DO reputation at all costs. Doctorates in other fields are not the same. Those guilty of trying to convince the public of this are doing patients an injustice. If our organizations won’t do anything to protect our noble profession that who will? The AMA recently tweeted how they are helping legal battles in many states against non-doctors getting independence. Great. What we need more, though, is an educational and marketing campaign against people like this lowlife above as well as non-doctors pretending to be doctors or equal to doctors. It is offensive to us and we need to push back and let the public know that there are tremendous differences in education and training.
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As there were enough gullible people in the U.S.A. to elect a con man with no qualifications for the job to be president it is not too surprising that such gullible people will also accept fake doctors. The latter probably share DNA with the traveling salesmen in the Old West who sold elixirs that cured everything from headaches to lumbago.
I read the article, and thought, “this is just bizarre.” Then it occurred to me that bizarre may well be the new norm.
I am relying on Memory. 30+ years ago, Sixty minutes did a show on NP at the Family Practice Clinic at Columbia in New York. I recall how they said they spent more time than MDs with the patients and the patients loved these new “doctors.”
I also vaguely remember about 1987 or so, The head physician in the Connecticut Air Force National Guard was found out not to be an MD. I do not recall the specifics.
On a parallel note, I was on active duty 40 years ago. I and another person (JAG Officer) were the ranking Jewish leaders. The military at that time, allowed the highest ranking person in the religious group to perform certain activities otherwise limited to the clergy (marriage was not one). The JAG officer and I had the same promotion date, so we were considered equals. There was a newspaper (I long ago forgot the name) that had an ad for mail order ordination as a rabbi for $10 or so. I did it for a lark. I leaned I was now considered both a doctor and a rabbi by the army. Think about that for the future.
How does one become a doctor of Sexology? Inquiring minds want to know.
“Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” HL Mencken
Let them win and see what they get.
Amen. DPC is about selling a product and showing value. I look at those organizations the same way. What value are they giving me for the $500/yr membership fee. None that I can see. In fact they have made it worse. Many join saying they will change it from within. I’ve heard that mantra for 15 years. Why not go back to FFS and change it from within? Your chances are just as good. I thought I could help the VA. Wrong. The VA scraped me off its shoe last January. These organizations won’t change until you stop sending them money. Even worse, as long as you send them money they will continue to work against us.