Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine
ABOUT ME
My motivation for starting this group comes from my experience with my partner of 31 years, Catherine Larson, who died in March of 2020 at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis, Oregon. She was 66 years old.
I had taken Catherine to the hospital in Corvallis, an hour away from our home in Eugene, due to a respiratory infection (a cold, not Covid-19). As is usual for a person with quadriplegia, she required hospitalization every time she got a cold or flu. At a hospital, she could receive respiratory therapy treatments, which typically included being put on bipap non-invasive mechanical ventilation. She became quadriplegic after sustaining a spinal cord injury at the age of 15.
We went to the hospital in Corvallis because she had been fired as a patient by the pulmonary doctors in the Eugene area, Oregon Lung Specialists. She had refused to comply with their desire for her to be given a permanent tracheostomy. She did not see a medical need for it, nor did I, and the doctors were never able to produce a cogent argument to support the idea. She had lived for years without a tracheostomy and she had no problems breathing, so she steadfastly refused the doctors’ insistence to have a tracheostomy, and I strongly concurred with her opinion.
Are you a friend or family member of a victim of medical bullying, abandonment, hastened death, assisted suicide or euthanasia? As such, you know firsthand how badly medical professionals can behave. We don’t allow others in our society to treat people this way. Why should medical professionals be any different?
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Ignoring/ dismissing/ not listening/ refusing to engage
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Neglecting to treat
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Abandoning
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Perpetuating misinformation and misdiagnoses through the medical record
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Believing the medical record more than the patient
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Bullying and coercing
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Punishing and being vindictive
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Being prejudicial in regard to age, race, disability and health condition
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Disregarding and discounting mental illnesses
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Hastening death, assisting suicide and euthanizing
Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine is organizing to seek ways to address the widespread attitude problems among medical professionals, particularly doctors. These attitude problems underlie the widely experienced bad behavior of doctors as well as the growing belief in death as a treatment option.
Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine seek to:
1) identify the existing carrots that encourage bad attitudes by doctors and explore ways to remove or reduce them,
2) identify the existing sticks that discourage doctors from developing good attitudes and explore ways to remove or reduce them,
3) develop new carrots that could encourage good attitudes by doctors and explore ways to establish them, and
4) develop new sticks that could discourage bad attitudes by doctors and explore ways to establish them.
Additionally, Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine aims to be a resource for the friends and family members of patients who are vulnerable, particularly when they urgently need help with navigating the horrors of hospitals and badly behaving medical professionals. With proper support, friends and family members may be able to effectively assert themselves in the care and treatment of their loved ones and stop their loved ones from being bullied, abandoned or killed by medical professionals.
It’s time to mobilize! Your involvement is needed! Send your thoughts and ideas and describe your experience with medical victimization and abuse to: goodnessinmedicine@comcast.net
- Thomas Lester, for Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine
* Oregonians for Goodness in Medicine is a social and political research and study group and is not accepting donations.