Article on abusive Stake Pres in CA

[helemon]

http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/1998-08-05/news/feature_print.html
While this is a horrible abuse of power by the doctor, I couldn't help but think how the church cripples people's ability to think critically about the actions of someone who is in a position of authority in the church.

[nate]

I couldn't help but think how the church cripples people's ability to think critically about the actions of someone who is in a position of authority in the church.

It most certainly does! Take this, something I wrote about last month, for example:

I got a call at work yesterday saying, "This is your sister's doctor's office. Uhm, we did a procedure on her today and she has a concussion and doesn't know who she is. Can you come pick her up?"

WTF!! They won't tell me anything else, so I get in the car, and on my way over get stuck behind the slowest moving train on the freakin' planet! When I finally show up, my sister is lying on a Dr. bed moaning and crying. They inform me that she had a mole removed, then on the way to the front counter to pay her copay, fainted, fell, hit her head, was unconscious for 1 minute, then had complete amnesia for over a half an hour. "So...can you take her?"

"What!?! What happened? Do you think it was a bad reaction to the local antesthetic?"

"No, that can't be it. It's just the body's reaction to having a part of it removed. It usually happens in men more often though. She just has to be careful and tell people now that she has a tendancy to faint."

?????!!!!

So we try to sit her up so I can take her to the ER, and she goes white, eyes roll back, vomit. THEN they decide to call the ambulance THAT THEY HAD PREVIOUSLY CALLED BUT CANCELLED once they got ahold of me, the graphic designer.

We go to the ER, wait in the waiting room on a stretcher for 35 minutes, then go in, wait in another room for a couple hours, get a CT scan, and wait another hour or so. Meanwhile, my sis, who recognized me at the Dr. office, now doesn't know my name. She doesn't know her husband's name. She doesn't even know HER name!

CT results show bruising, bleeding and swelling of the brain. Rush to another hospital. More CT scans. New results show a skull fracture, but reduction of bleeding, so no need to drain. Finally, later that night, she starts to regain memory and speech.

She's still in the hospital, but is going to be ok. No permanent damage is expected. Will probably be released to her hubby this evening because he's an EMT.

So, I have my wife (pharmacy chick) look up in her drug reference book, and turns out that two of the main side effects of the anesthetic my sister got are: Unconsciousness and Dizziness.

My sister was shortly after taken home by her TBM hubby. I tried to convince them to call a lawyer, because A. the doc should've made her sit for a spell before discharging her from his office (what if she'd made it to her car, THEN passed out?), B. they never should have moved her after an obvious head injury, C. they should have done nothing other than check her vitals until the EMTs arrived (instead of calling me and cancelling the ambulance order) and C. after release from the hospital the doctor never even called to check up on her.

Even despite all of this they were very reluctant to call a lawyer, being extremely passive about the whole incident. After badgering and badgering them about this, they finally conceeded and said they would call one; the lawyer they called just happened to be their home teacher.

Then, AFTER they contacted the lawyer, I found out that my sisters hubby, who is a freakin EMT (who should damn well know better), let my sister (heavily medicated at the time) go BACK to the same doctor, days after the incident!!

Low and behold, the doctor is in their ward.

[Born Free]

http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/1998-08-05/news/feature_print.html
While this is a horrible abuse of power by the doctor, I couldn't help but think how the church cripples people's ability to think critically about the actions of someone who is in a position of authority in the church.
That sounds very similar to this guy who used to live and had a practice of sorts at Templeview (where the temple is) in New Zealand.

Every woman who went to this guys practice was diagnosed with some sort of 'pelvic nerve congestion condition', that had to be treated with finger in the vagina while a rubbing motion was applied to the clitoral area! (No, I'm not joking!)

Stand back and look at the big picture with this CA doctor (I appreciate easier after the event): son is/was schizophrenic, the guy clearly has some level of paranoia, exhibits severe hoarding, and some people are claiming there is unusual activity involving sexuality in his practice! Not the start of a good cluster worth further investigation???? A good psychologist would raise their eyebrows upon seeing that collection.

I wonder if Church members ever stand back and look at the number of highly dysfunctional people they have protected, shielded and even help avoid appropriate review before the law. They automatically go into 'Circle the wagons, the gentiles are attaching us Mormons' mode', apparently incapable of looking at people in a one on one basis.

Daryl

[helemon]

I wonder if Church members ever stand back and look at the number of highly dysfunctional people they have protected, shielded and even help avoid appropriate review before the law. They automatically go into 'Circle the wagons, the gentiles are attaching us Mormons' mode', apparently incapable of looking at people in a one on one basis.

Do you think they would have been so quick to protect him though if he had just been jo-shmo sunday school teacher? I think the fact that he was in a high position of authority and had a highly lucrative medical practice (and who wouldn't if you are seeing your patients 3 times a week!! :duh) which no doubt generated tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to the church every year, was also a large part of the behavior by the church. This is what happens when you start covering up the sins of the founder of your religion. Pretty soon all the leaders of the church must appear pure as the driven snow even if it requires the coverup of the pain and abuse of hundreds of trusting followers.

[Born Free]

Do you think they would have been so quick to protect him though if he had just been jo-shmo sunday school teacher? I think the fact that he was in a high position of authority and had a highly lucrative medical practice (and who wouldn't if you are seeing your patients 3 times a week!! :duh) which no doubt generated tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to the church every year, was also a large part of the behavior by the church. This is what happens when you start covering up the sins of the founder of your religion. Pretty soon all the leaders of the church must appear pure as the driven snow even if it requires the coverup of the pain and abuse of hundreds of trusting followers.
Helemon,

Oh, you heartless cynic, you!

He was not charging many of those consults, out of the 'goodness of his heart'(alternative - carefully sculpted grooming)!

My God! With that many visits, it's a wonder some of these women didn't develop stirrup-sores! :slap: :slap:

Daryl

[helemon]

Every woman who went to this guys practice was diagnosed with some sort of 'pelvic nerve congestion condition', that had to be treated with finger in the vagina while a rubbing motion was applied to the clitoral area! (No, I'm not joking!)

Well we wouldn't want the women developing hysteria now would we! ;) Lord knows their TBM husbands were probably clueless about how to help them have the big O.

[helemon]

Helemon,

Oh, you heartless cynic, you!

He was not charging many of those consults, out of the 'goodness of his heart'(alternative - carefully sculpted grooming)!

My God! With that many visits, it's a wonder some of these women didn't develop stirrup-sores! :slap: :slap:

Daryl

I am not sure that he didn't charge for all of the women. Perhaps he just didn't charge them a co-pay but still billed their insurance. With all those shots he was giving them it sounded to me like he might have been doing some insurance fraud as well as molesting his patients.

[Born Free]

I am not sure that he didn't charge for all of the women. Perhaps he just didn't charge them a co-pay but still billed their insurance. With all those shots he was giving them it sounded to me like he might have been doing some insurance fraud as well as molesting his patients.
Towards the end of the very, very extensive media story, was the identification of it as part of 'grooming' for abuse.

Part of my learning curve was seeing how sexual abusers build up an unhealthy sense of trust and indebtedness on the part of their 'victim'.

For example, a paedophile will befriend the targeted child and their family, and work on being seen as trusted. They may spend years literally building up that trust.

They will learn what behaviours are forbidden for the child by their parents, such as sweets an hour before meals.

They then supply the child with sweets inside the forbidden time frame, but frame the violation as 'our secret', to test the waters.

Once that has started, the wedge is driven in deeper and the gap between what the children is doing and what the parents are aware of gets wider and wider. The complex mental space that is used to control the child is expanded, until the child feels they have no room to move, or report their distress.

Scary? You bet, and the average John Doe on the street has not a clue that that is the sort of 'process' employed.

In this case, the trust was largely there in the joint roles of: medical practitioner, Church leader, & community leader. Be building up the sense of financial indebtedness, he was able to create the sense that he was their friend, when he was a predator.

As an aside, for the life of me I cannot comprehend the appeal of spending ones entire day taking a gynecological perspective on women. I am far from adverse to the female form and even female genitals, but this guy must have developed callouses on his ears from rubbing on the inside of women's knees!! :eek: :Crazy: :eek: )

Daryl

[helemon]

Part of my learning curve was seeing how sexual abusers build up an unhealthy sense of trust and indebtedness on the part of their 'victim'.


That ties in with the previous thread on slavery and how the atonement is used to create endebtedness on the part of the believer.

I saw a short video on your tube where a guy tried to video tape a Scientology meeting. Three goons started harassing the cameraman. They kept asking him what his crimes were because only people with a crime to hide would hate Scientology. It reminded me of Hubbards book Battlefield Earth where the primary goal of the alien society was to gain leverage over their fellow aliens so that they could blackmail them into doing what they wanted. It really made me think about the whole confession of sins and how much power that gives the clergy. Here are these men who know the dirty little secrets of the whole community. Is it really about forgiveness or obtaining emotional leverage?