Let’s talk about the meaning of a “god-complex”. Wikipedia defines a “god complex” as
“an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility. A person with a god complex may refuse to admit the possibility of their error or failure, even in the face of complex or intractable problems or difficult or impossible tasks, or may regard their personal opinions as unquestionably correct.”
Many parents can find a living, breathing example of a person suffering from a “god complex” as close as the family pediatrician’s office.
One such example is the anonymous pediatrician who wrote this essay, which was published by The Daily Beast.
I always ask if the children are vaccinated, or if the parents intend to vaccinate once the child is born. If the answer is no, I politely and respectfully tell them we won’t be the right fit. We don’t accept patients whose parents won’t vaccinate them.
When I read the essay, I had to check to see if it was satire. Unfortunately, it’s legitimate. That a doctor that you are paying to care for your child feels so omnipotent is simply mindblowing. That a person who swore an oath to do no harm would feel so strongly about imposing his will on parents speaks volumes about his high opinion of himself, even though he says that isn’t the case:
The physician-patient relationship, like so many other human relationships, requires an element of trust. I certainly neither want nor expect a return to the paternalistic “doctor knows best” mindset of bygone years, but I do need to know that patient’s parents respect my training and expertise. Refusing an intervention I desperately want all children to receive makes that respect untenably dubious.
All over the country, doctors are now refusing to treat children who are unvaccinated. This, in my opinion, is just another bullying tactic to try to force a parent’s hand. It pushes them to worry about well-child visits, about what you’ll do if your child becomes ill and needs surgery, about how you would acquire needed antibiotics for a routine ear infection. And with Obamacare, you can be assured the push for standardization of care and for vaccines is going to become even more aggressive.
The pediatrician who wrote this, who is apparently sheepish enough about his views that he used a pseudonym for his essay, pushes the mainstream propaganda with this paragraph (links to his sources are embedded):
There are few questions I can think of that have been asked and answered more thoroughly than the one about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.
The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not cause autism.
The HPV vaccine is safe.
In response to this, I supply my own links:
- The courts have made numerous payouts to families, deciding that the MMR vaccine does, in fact, cause autism.
- The HPV vaccine is a deadly scam.
- Thimerosal, aka mercury, is toxic.
Finally, he wraps it up, and I have to say, I’d be thrilled to be kicked out of his office because I do think he is misguided. I sincerely think he believes what he is pushing, but I also think he has been brainwashed, not educated.
I often wonder why a parent who believes vaccines are harmful would want to bring their children to a medical doctor at all. After all, for immunizations to be as malign as their detractors claim, my colleagues and I would have to be staggeringly incompetent, negligent or malicious to keep administering them.
If vaccines caused the harms Jenny McCarthy and her ilk claim they do, then my persistence in giving them must say something horrifying about me. Why would you then want to bring your children to me when you’re worried about their illnesses? As a parent myself, I wouldn’t trust my children’s care to someone I secretly thought was a fool or a monster.It’s not merely that I don’t want to have to worry that the two-week-old infant in my waiting room is getting exposed to a potentially-fatal case of pertussis if these parents bring their children in with a bad cough. It’s not just that I don’t want their kid to be the first case of epiglottitis I’ve ever seen in my career. Those are reasons enough, to be sure. But they’re not all.
What breaks the deal is that I would never truly believe that these parents trust me. Giving kids vaccines is the absolute, unambiguous standard of care, as easy an answer as I will ever be able to offer.
If they don’t trust me about that, how can I hope they would if the questions ever got harder?
I have personally had tense conversations during doctor’s visits when refusing vaccines or certain medications for my children. I have been quizzed about vaccines in the emergency room when I brought my daughter in for a broken wrist, which is clearly totally unrelated to her vaccination history. I’ve never had a doctor absolutely refuse to treat my child, but there have been some less-than-positive encounters.
It is my right as a parent to make the best choices possible for my children – choices that are based on my personal beliefs, my religious beliefs, and the research that I have diligently searched out. Medicine should not be a dictatorship, where you go in and submit your child to the doctor’s decisions. I want a doctor with whom I can partner in my child’s care, not an arrogant, all-knowing, inflexible authoritarian in a lab coat.
If you have a pediatrician who treats you condescendingly, who refuses to abide by your wishes for treatment for your children, or who refuses to consider your concerns as valid, maybe if that doctor refuses to treat your child, it is the best thing that could happen.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, a leading wellness expert, an osteopathic physician and a board-certified family medical doctor, sums it up:
It goes without saying that when you choose a physician, that physician is working for you. It is an oxymoron that a pediatrician is able to “fire” a patient; more accurately, you have a choice as to whom you trust to provide health care for you and your children.
So you can always FIRE your doctor. It is YOUR right and YOUR choice to take control of your health and your family’s health and you should NEVER allow any doctor to interfere with that right. That said, there are reports of pediatricians ostracizing patients that disagree with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule. Some pediatricians will even resist answering your vaccination questions or concerns.
I find it interesting, though, that one of the most salient points raised in the Time magazine article came not from the author but from her 4-year-old daughter, who asked after receiving five vaccines:
“Why I got to get shots to make me healthy?”
And therein lies a very powerful question … (source)
Resources:
Learn more about vaccines from these resources:
National Vaccine Information Center
Vaccination Voodoo: What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines (reviewed HERE)
How tragic there are doctors out there who support these views.
Unfortunately, I can see this administration applauding and promoting these ideas.
Meanwhile, due to Obamacare, I have seen many GOOD doctors leave or preparing to leave medicine.
Apparently, that doctor feels children ARE NOT exposed to enough chemicals.
Meanwhile, we read that…
Children Exposed to More Brain-Harming Chemicals Than Ever Before
“A new report finds the number of chemicals contributing to brain disorders in children has doubled since 2006.”
http://healthland.time.com/2014/02/14/children-exposed-to-more-brain-harming-chemicals-than-ever-before/
I have only one question in regards to this. Let’s set aside the “vaccinations are harmful” discussion just for the moment, as that may be debated ad infinitum and is not the subject of my issue.
The question(s) is this: Have you ever been sued? For everything you are worth? What would you do to minimize the risk of this happening?
The facts are that there is NOTHING that you as a patient can assent to, sign, get videotaped giving consent that will hold up in court as a defense to a malpractice suit that would occur should your child come down with a serious communicable disease that could be prevented with a vaccination such as polio or rubella. Should a person who can be PROVEN to have the staunch anti-vaccination views decided to sue because of the damages to their child, and the doctor tried to show evidence of their beliefs, they would only have to say “But, I did not understand the consequences of what I was doing – he SHOULD HAVE MADE ME UNDERSTAND!” And the jury will nod, with tears in their eyes and award millions in damages, of which the attorneys get a lions share.
The bottom line is that the courts are compelled to apply the standard of “usual and customary” and “standard of care” to the case. ANY deviation from this may be considered actionable AS A MATTER OF LAW. And consent to the contrary is worthless as the patient can merely state later that they did not understand. And like it or not, GETTING a vaccination for the standard childhood illnesses IS the standard of care.
So this pediatrician may only have their own self preservation in mind, and the family (who is NEVER obligated to see only him) is being done a service from the outset to go seek a like-minded doctor. If they cannot find one, maybe this is would be an impetus for them to reassess their beliefs.
Trust me, it would be SO much easier just to smile, nod, and acquiesce to EVERY patient whim, regardless of health impact, if their were no repercussions. The “hassle factor” is simply not worth it for most situations. But, sometimes were are obliged to think of OUR families and children if your beliefs and potential fallout if things go wrong impact them.
So, rant away, but this is the one of the real flip sides of this issue.
Let’s play devil’s advocate against your argument. In all reality, a person who has been harmed in any way by a vaccine cannot sue the doctor or nurse who gave the vaccine or the pharmaceutical company. Thanks to the American and Canadian governments, patients are the ones who have to foot the bill if they or their children are harmed or die due to a vaccine.
So, sure the doctor could follow the one-size-fits all way of doctoring in order to cover their butt, but legally it’s no skin off their nose if they harm or kill a child due to administering that vaccine.
And since patients and parents are the ones who have to pick up the pieces if something goes terribly wrong (which happens WAY more than most people think), why should they submit to getting a one-size-fits-all drug?
“GETTING a vaccination for the standard childhood illnesses IS the standard of care.” We also have a right to refuse that standard of care. Consider the case of a pediatrician in Georgia who elected to torture his patient and patient’s parents for their refusal of a tetanus vaccine. That pediatrician delayed standard of care wound surgery, called the police on the parents, social workers, and ultimately had the kid seized by CPS. CPS then neglected the kid resulting in further injury after which time they returned the kid to the family. This case is now in federal civil court naming upwards of 30 defendants including the pediatrician. Criminal charges are also being sought against the pediatrician. Standard of care does not trump 4th and 5th Amendment rights. Link to the civil action:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/195587120/42-U-S-C-%C2%A7-1983-Deprivation-of-Rights-DOCTORS-HOSPITAL-of-AUGUSTA-LLC-et-alia
But, as I stated, there is no BINDING contract or document that ABSOLVES a doctor from any liability should the unvaccinated child/parents decide to sue if/when their child gets clinical tetanus or botulism. Inevitably, all their passion and beliefs go out the window when a whore plaintiff’s attorney convinces them that their big payday is visualized in the distance – all they have to do is sue the doctor / ER / hospital.
Until that issue of unequivocal, binding, non-retractable consent for the consequences of non-treatment is decided, then the standard of care in a public institution WILL be enforced. And even IF the parents are of a mind, the authorities will come up with an “advocate” for the child and now all bets are off again.
Bottom line, if you don’t want vaccinations, don’t seek ANY medical care from a conventional medical care office / facility / institution.
So your bottom line, Hank, means that if a parent disagrees with ONE part of conventional medical care we should eschew every other part?
That’s absolutely ridiculous.
You’re suggesting, no access to diagnostics, no access to antibiotics, all because a parent doesn’t wish to shoot up his or her child with toxins on the “I-Know-All” say so from another human being. Becoming a physician doesn’t make a person infallible, and I would no more accept every word from them as inarguably factual than I would any other person on the planet.
I do see your point about the potential lawsuits, and it’s sad that our society is so litigious. But to attempt to force someone into treatments that they do not want or withhold all other treatment? That’s truly callous and the course of a bully. “If you won’t play MY game, I’ll take my ball and go home.”
one word, and ive been doing it for two years, learn medicine, and buy your own meds from Mexico…sad, but almost necessary now.
I’m actually fine with that. Just as I’m fine with a doctor refusing to perform an unnecessary abortion (being non-life threatening), and I’m free to ask if they will support our attempts at natureopathy before we delve into chemicals to treat illnesses, etc.
Liberty plays in here for me. He’s free to choose whom he will treat as much as I’m free to choose whom I want treating me.
I completely agree with you, Jane. So long as it doesn’t get to the point where a parent like Daisy can’t find a doctor to treat her kids, doctors should be free to choose not to treat someone (assuming it’s not an emergency), based on their beliefs.
If you are uncomfortable with the pediatrician, just walk away.
You must have freedom of choice, there are simply too many problems to have this forced on anyone:
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Daisy, I completely agree with you on vaccines, but disagree with you on the god complex. I have to agree with the doctor on some points. I would not want to take my child to a doc that completely agrees with vaccines. If I am opposed and he adamently for them….it is not a good fit and he has every right to refuse me if I do not want to take his advice.
Let me give you an example from a perspective that literally happened to me today. Obviously it is differnet, but I get his perpective.
We own a computer repair networking company. We deal with dentists. Our client base is 98% dentists. With Obamacare, they have decided to give HIPAA compliance an enforcement arm. Hipaa has been around for a long time, but never had any enforcement. For a long time our customers would say “show me the HIPAA police and we will get compliant.” Well now there is enforcement, so we are trying to get our customers compliant.
There was a dental office in our state that was auditted and fined $50k and they put the blame on their IT company for not telling them what they needed to do. This was after only 150 random audits, this year they are upping it to 300, and the dentists know it because every conference, as well as us are telling them.
We told a customer what they needed. They don’t want to do it, but want us to do something that will not make them compliant and frankly won’t work. We told them to find another company. She is mad, but we cannot in good faith do what she wants just to get her business. We put ourselves at risk and truly believe put her at risk. We have been doing this a very long time and really do know what we are doing. Or at least really believe so based on the knowledge we have. Could it be done another way? I suppose, but this is what we do. If they do not like it, we are not a good fit for them.
I agree, why go to a doctor who believes differently than you do. I had to leave my OB/GYN because she would not give me a procedure that I needed after getting an ablasion, because she believed it was better for my husband to get a vasectimy than me getting a tubal…despite the risk to my life were I to get pregnant after the ablasion.
There are doctors who are not obsessed with vaccinations. I take my daughter to one. They exist, you just have to find them. The more that comes out about vaccinations, the more luck you will have. But this doctor thinks they are safe and necessary. that does not mean he has a god complex for refusing to take on patients that are opposed to vaccinations. He just doesn’t want to take patients who refuse his advice. I completely agree with that. Don’t take them. It really can be a liability. I would be more angry if an ER refused to take care of a child with a broken arm because of vaccinations. That shouldn’t matter as it is not a long term relationship. But a pediatrician is a long term relationship. If you refuse his advice, in his mind, he cannot take care of you to what he believes is the best of his ability.
Uhmmm maybe he doesn’t want to get sued for malpractice if your kid gets an easily preventable disease? Why would you want to go to a doctor you disagree with anyways? Sorry just thinking he doesn’t want to lose millions
I suppose if a patient has the right to choose the Doctor of their choice, wouldn’t it be okay for a Doctor to choose his preferred patient?
Personally, I would prefer to go to a Doctor where we are on the same page. So for me; knowing where a Doctor stands in his medical practice, is a way for me to be more informed in my personal decision making.
Daisy, thanks for keeping the issue of vaccinations in front of us. Commenters talk about the need for freedom of choice for both doctors and parents. But America is 1938 Germany complete with a Police State.
There are many theories of what will force Patriots to draw a line in the sand (gun confiscation, martial law etc.). Never underestimate ‘forced vaccinations’… Will you stand next to parents who refuse vaccinations for their children? They may be ‘the Jews’ of the next holocaust… Ridiculous you say? Ask yourself, ‘Has evil ever been as prevalent in the world as it is today?’
We recently moved across country, and before we could establish care with a doctor our oldest daughter developed a high fever and odd bumps on her torso. We’re a non-vax family for religious reasons. Because we don’t vaccinate, it’s pretty logical that we’d be aware of any illnesses she developed and make sure that they don’t get out of hand… hives counts as worrisome and since she obviously hasn’t had the measles vaccine it was one of my worries. It was a nightmare trying to get her seen anywhere. One place after another simply heard that we didn’t vaccinate and said that they wouldn’t take us. We ended up going to the health department, it was the only place outside the ER we could go to. Turned out she had a urinary tract infection that had just manifested in a weird way. What if it had been something serious? We knew enough that she had to see a doctor, if it was measles or anything similar it would need to be treated correctly so as to avoid our daughter becoming one of the sad statistics, one of the risks we knew we were taking in not vaccinating her. But we had countered that risk with the thought that if she did develop a disease that is typically vaccinated against, we would not be in a 3rd world country where she couldn’t get the care or medicine she would need. Turns out that logic was wrong. We were in a 3rd world country where she couldn’t get the care she needed, only the 3rd world part about it was the Doctors’ choice not to even see her. Luckily we have since found a doctors office that will work with our religious choices and care for our children regardless, but at the time it was a very scary situation.
I am SO sorry that happened to you, but the sad fact is that it probably would still have been the case if you had had an easier time finding a doctor to treat your daughter. Because she was not vaccinated, they probably would have jumped straight to measles/rubella. And they would have had NO CLUE as to what to do.
You might almost have been better off in a Third World country (or at least a Second World one) where the doctors still see these things and still have some idea of what to do.
Been there, done that. My husband had whooping cough in 2008. He had NO trouble getting a doctor to see him. In fact, he saw three– and NONE of them had a single clue of how to handle it. His regular doctor, a very old man who remembered the old days, finally diagnosed the problem; even he had no idea of how to treat it.
We MUST go back to training our doctors in how to deal with things like measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and whooping cough. I DO vaccinate, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that vaccines are foolproof.
Two pieces of friendly advice (and it really is friendly advice): If you move again, find a sympathetic doctor in your new location beforehand. And pick up a copy of The Prepared Family Guide to Uncommon Diseases, by Enola Gay. You may find a kindred spirit in the author, and the book will be a useful guide should you actually find yourself facing something that modern American medicine has forgotten how to treat.
God did not invent vaccines, man did. Medicinal plants grow in nature, our bodies are incredible machines divinely programmed to grow and heal innately. Physicians are not God or Mother Nature, they are human. To be human is to be conscious and to have conscience.
The physicians, for liability purposes, may be trying to cover their rear ends. However, it can work the other way. Giving a vaccine can create problems. The contemporary and conventional vaccines (flu, whooping cough, HPV, etc.) have not been proven to prevent anything. If anything, there are a cascade of potential adverse effects. In short, there’s no need for them. The “unvaccinated” child has never been proven to be a threat. That’s just sales talk from the fearmongerers in government and Big Pharma. Will a car with bald tires cause a 100 car pile up? That’s how they portray things.
The doctors is primarily refusing treatment to encourage more sales. That’s pretty much it. These doctors are often knowledgeable of the mal-effects of vaccines and won’t even give them to their own children. By refusing to treat your child, they re trying to railroad you into insurance payments and helping to prop up their lifestyles.
Do this. If the doctor is so adamant about vaccines, print up one of those forms that puts the liability into the hands of the doctor and threaten the sue the white coat off that person. They will either back off with the vaccine nonsense of just refuse treatment. You can just go elsewhere.
Note to parents: you are the first line of defense in the health of your child and children. You must educate yourselves on how to keep them healthy. A needle is not the only way to provide a vaccine or immune system boosting function. You can “vaccinate” your child through non-gmo and organic healthy food. You can vaccinate your child by raising them from mother’s milk to raw organic milk. Vaccination can be provided by supplementing their diets with high quality vitamin-mineral supplements. Then there’s colloidal silver, oil of oregano and Vitamin C & D.
Since the [your] goal is not so much to put a needle in their arm but to boost immune function, you can find all kinds of methods to accomplish the same goal. So when they ask, “is your child vaccinated?” You can reply, “Yes, they are immunized!” Don’t fall for the nonsense of being a threat due to not having been injected or give a nasal spray.
Aside, the “vaccinated” kids and doctors should have nothing to fear if they’ve been injected. Right?!
This is hardly a “god-complex”. Why is it ok for patients to choose doctors but not for doctors to choose patients? If he does not want vaccinated children exposed to unvaccinated children, to protect his other patients, that his his/her choice.
I don’t agree with the doctor’s stance on vaccines or parents who choose not to vaccinate. I CERTAINLY don’t believe that the medical establishment, or the government, should have the right to force compliance with what they believe is best– they, too, are only human, and I do not take kindly to paternalism.
I do, however, appreciate him announcing it publically. If a doctor– any doctor, but particularly a pediatrician or mental health practitioner– isn’t going to be a good fit for me or my family, I’d prefer to know that up front and have to keep looking than to have to guess and find out the hard way. Been there, done that, still in therapy for what is probably PTSD over it.
Let them announce themselves, and then find one who is more sympathetic. Saves time and trouble all around.
Coincidentally, I DO choose to vaccinate my kids (and get adult boosters for myself and my hubby)– I’ve lived with autism and he’s lived with whooping cough; autism has some redeeming qualities while pertussis has NONE. I would much rather hold an Aspergic teenager while she cries over yet another social failure, or tote a profoundly autistic 8-year-old to yet another therapy session, than fight diphtheria or the measles. Or ever tangle with pertussis again.
I’m not real big on the idea that vaccines cause autism, other than perhaps in a tiny minority of susceptible children with an as-yet unidentified anomaly in the brain or gut or both (for whom we MUST figure out the reasons why, and how to find it ahead of time, so that they can be spared). But it CAN’T be all that common– if it were, ALL (or at least some) of my kids would be autistic in some degree. I KNOW they are genetically susceptible– my father had Asperger’s, my maternal grandfather had Asperger’s, I have cousins on both sides of the family with it, and I have it myself.
I don’t have four autistic kids. I have a 12-year-old (vaccinated on schedule) who has surpassed her mother already in terms of social skills. I have a 7-year-old (OK, he’ll be 7 in a few weeks, also vaccinated on schedule) who has a touch of ADHD (my husband and his mother have it too). I have a 5-year-old (not vaccinated on schedule because my terror of autism overtook my common sense) who is almost pathologically un-autistic– socially skillful to the point of being manipulative and so outgoing she frightens me (born that way, and 18 months of catch-up shots every 16 weeks have done nothing to change it). I have a 2-year-old (vaccinated on schedule) who may or may not have a speech delay (I don’t hear enough words, but everyone else does– whether there’s an issue or whether the issue is that she has three doting siblings who don’t need words to understand her remains to be seen), but not every speech delay is part of autism. Believe me– I was an autistic kid, and she’s nothing like me.
Sorry for climbing up on my soapbox about vaccines and autism. But, after 36 years of living with a mild case of it (and yes, diagnosing milder and milder cases IS the reason for the 1000+ percent increase in autism diagnoses), I get pretty dang passionate about the thought that autism is NOT a bigger boogeyman than diseases that STILL kill thousands of kids every year.
As a pediatrician I am appalled that ethics of our profession are being called into question here. I have had a patient die from pneumococcal disease and another toddler has hospitalized, intubated, and needed his chest opened to place a drain for the pus that collected around his heart. When this child comes in for well visits with his still-fresh scar on his chest, how can I look him in the eye and tell him that I fought hard enough to spare him this disease. What about the child’s right to be spared life-threatening diseases? Why have we lost the dialogue on the unvaccinated child’s risk to their own health? I cannot look at an unvaccinated child who literally almost died from a vaccine preventable disease and not vow to fight for him. However, if a parent continues to refuses to vaccinate, it is my right to see this as unethical behavior and ask the parent to find another physician who shares this philosophy. I will not shame a family’s decision not to vaccinate, just as I expect a parent who choose not to vaccinate to respect my belief that a child has the right to be protected from diseases that can cause their death.