Authenticity, Psychiatry and Brunette River Walk

I’ve just had a lovely walk along the Brunette River with Gilbert, my blind Cockapoo.  I took my iPhone X and my Apple Air Pods to listen to the Podcast on Authenticity, July 4, 2016, from the University of Oxford, 8th Unconscious Memory seminar, “Trust in Experts.”
Authenticity is a critical factor in clinical medicine, especially psychiatry and even more important in Addiction Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine.  A number of the leading specialists in this field feel most strongly that if a practitioner is unwilling to self disclose their own struggle with addiction then they really don’t belong in the field.
It’s noted that in general medicine non compliance can range to 30% In psychiatry it’s not uncommonly 80% and it well can be argued that in Addiction Psychiatry it’s not uncommonly 100%. This gave rise to the development of motivational psychotherapy and a scale assessing willingness to change.
In contrast in general medicine where the patient is seeking help and has a particular complaint, this is increasingly less the case as clinicians are increasingly coopted by third parties to do their bidding rather than 'heal' which is what the doctor's original role was before the corruption. The 'voluntariness' of the patient, seeking help for a bio psycho social or physical or mental problems still exists.   In Forensic Psychiatry by contrast, the psychiatrist is backed by jail and guns, the patient not being 'free' and care potentially 'coerced'.   In addiction psychiatry there’s a peculiar dance in which the ‘therapeutic alliance’ is foundational and critical.
St. Paul,  was the first Addiction Psychiatrist and said , Romans 7.20  "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do  I do not do, but what I hate I do."
Repeatedly studies of psychotherapeutic outcomes in psychotherapy and especially psychiatric psychotherapy and even more so Addiction Psychiatry/Medicine, has declared the critical importance of ‘authenticity’.  Note that, in contrast to studies which historically declared doctors the most trusted of experts and lawyers the least trusted and politicians.  Administrative medicine given it’s ’scripted’ association with the whims of politics and lack of scientific veracity, has yet no need for ‘authenticity’. Indeed 'in authentic doctors would likely be attracted to such an aloof in human field of scripts and obedience to the degree that Arendt described as 'banal'.   The closer to the ‘police’ the administrative function is the less it requires “authenticity’. It doesn't directly serve the patient but serves the institution. Relying as Forensic Psychiatry does on ‘position authority’ and ‘weapons’ versus ’tools’, it really doesn't know the importance of 'authenticity' or 'spontaneity' . It doesn't even grasp the concept of 'therapeutic alliance' because it's focus is 'walls' and 'boundaries' rather than the kind of 'cooperative' process which occurs in frontline clinical work where individuals are not hierarchically established despite the 'talking points' presentation of this relationship based on 'cultural communism.'
The significance of ‘authenticity’ is further important given the rise in ‘fake news’.  Ironically, a Harvard study found that some percentage akin to 75% of pro Hillary reporting and 75% of pro Republican reporting was ‘fake news’.  More significantly the ‘fake news’ was remembered and more ‘effective’ than the truth in deciding election outcome.
Churchill said, ‘a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."  The great Nazi Marketting Guru, Goebels, said, "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."  and "the bigger the lie the more it will be believed."
Prof. Andrew Parker, Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at Oxford discussed his fascinating study of brain activity using modern brain scanning techniques.  They took Rembrant Paintings ones known to be authentic and ones known to be ‘fake’ and showed them to their subjects equally.   He said it was unfortunate but that their subjects brains didn’t differentiate authentic and fake.  What was most important was that when they were told that a copy was a fake the brain behaved differently.  Indeed the ‘fake’ was made more memorable because the subjects seemed to be more interested what made it ‘fake’  rather than the ‘original’.
In clinical work, a patient faced with an ‘inauthentic’ or outright ‘lying’ clinician tends to focus most on that and not hear or pay much attention to the message after. This is especially true in the addiction field where patients have experienced significant trauma and know intuitively all the subtleties of in authenticity, like ‘damning with faint praise’, “trust me I’m here to help you”, "I'm not concerned for myself or seeking revenge I'm just concerned for others that they won't have to experience the terrible things I have."
An interesting study of administrative medicine showed that administrators were incapable of recognizing sociopaths which were readily identified by a judge.  As a family physician I had difficulty understanding certain psychiatric patients referring several a year to psychiatrists. Now I have seen tens of thousands and spent 4 decades working with psychopaths, sociopaths, psychotics and addicted I'm very experienced in this process. I actually find alot of people rather 'loud' because they're literally shouting their psychopathology and neediness and showing all manner of verbal, non verbal behaviours usually without any insight whatsoever.  Bullies are especially transparent.  Lawyers and administration are often a bit amusing to a psychiatrist because they historically rely on the 19th century masculine idea of 'playing their cards close to their chest” when in fact they radiate 'tells' time and time again mostly because they are so often 'above the law' and lack the skills and fitnesse of those below them or the chameleon psychopaths who routinely use them. Sociopathic women, borderlines are very adept as playing to the sexual weaknesses of the older male authorities by suggestively implying that they find them sexually arousing and that if they're supportive they might well be rewarded. The whole 'victim' culture which has been described extensively as  'cultural marxism" and coopting feminism. (Fiamenco, Hoff Summers, Dana Davison etc).
The stigmatization of mentally ill and addicted  patients has long been associated with an equal stigmatization of those who directly care for such people.  Such care givers are used to the discrimination, the jokes, the demeaning and humiliation that their patients suffer.  There's an element of fear which those unfamiliar with insanity have while those who are insane and especially the dementing are as bad as the 'lady that protestest too much."
Dr. Hannah Drayson, “The Experience of Spontaneity” , Digital Art and Technology, Plymouth University, talked about hypnosis and gave special reference to psychotherapy.  Spontaneity is the antithesis of the Bureaucratic Administrative Process. Indeed the ‘spontaneity’ of President Trump has infuriated the entrenched methodical bureaucratic government awakening from the experience of 2 decades of Lawyer Presidents, Obama, the Clintons and the Bushs. The American populist reaction is simply a backlash against this  perceived elite back room dealing.
Spontaneity is threatening to those ’stuck’. Studies show that ‘learned helplessness’ and the return to the ‘fetal position’ is more common than the idea of renewed ‘escape’ and ‘progress’.  Apathy is the characterization of the Canadian population along with those in asylums and jails. It was the character of the ‘peasants’ both before and after the Revolution and Lenin’s symbolic and actual killing of the Czar , his wife and his children.  The godless state has been more cruel than any godly state before.  Yet Canada trends to this as did the European Union with it’s appalling layers upon layers of  Brussels Bureaurocy. Dr. Phillip Ney has recorded that the numbing of the killing of  abortion in a society has made the administration insensitive to the 'people'.
It’s sad really that Authenticity and Spontaneity, critical to psychiatric psychotherapy and especially Addiction Psychiatry have so little meaning to lawyers and administrators.

As I continued my walk along the Brunette River I was happy to see the green tinged Mallard male and his female mate. There’s a flock of these ducks that commonly make their home along this stretch.
I especially enjoyed seeing the Wood duck male, a very colourful fellow. It was my first sighting of him this spring. I’ve not seen the female. This is likely the couple that has nested the last two years in the little man made lagoon. I so enjoyed watching the couple with their ducklings. Tragically each year I’ve seen the ducklings go missing till none remained.  I suspect a very happy coyote made that lagoon it’s dinner stop.
The mallards don’t seem to have this problem so I was glad to see the Wood Duck further down the stream.  I do hope that the couple have learned that the lagoon is a bad neighbourhood.
I was  blessed to see the Kingfisher darting by above the fast rushing stream. A couple of Kingfishers have made this river home.  I’ve spent years trying to photograph them as the male seems always on the go.
The Great Blue Heron was there too.  He actually let me take his picture. Last year I found his nest high up in the near by woods.  I took a video of him lifting off and was so pleased with myself only to lose it when I didn’t back up my photos.

A number of us with dogs gathered and chatted about the day, dogs, plans, grand children, dogs, children, and dogs, WWIII unfolding, dogs, generally having a good chat. The dogs all licked genitals and sniffed asses. Rick was still wearing his pyjama bottoms.  I came home for my second cup of coffee.

It was a great walk made better by the podcast and delightful first sightings of returning birds. The flowers are all blossoming. The daffodils are truly a delight. We are making plans to visit the Tulips near Abbotsford.  Le Conner near Bellingham and now the Canadian Tulips are an annual wake up experience for the winter weary brain.

Spring is such a joy with all it’s authenticity and spontaneity.

Company Doctors: Professionalism and Political Correctness

Historically, physicians among professionals have had the highest rating for trustworthiness and truthfulness.By contrast lawyers have been at the bottom of the heap.  Some actually say it’s sad that 90% of lawyers give the other 10% a bad name.  My old lawyer friend had insisted that this was  a product of the rise in social legislation that followed Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s reign.  My friend, an  old man, had  practiced law in Scotland before coming to Canada.

“I was proud to be a lawyer. It was a very honoured profession in my youth. Today I sometimes feel it’s just because of the money lawyers are perceived so negatively. I did well enough but if money was the sole criteria I’d not be thought as good a lawyer as some of my colleagues who sought celebrity and seemed only interested in the fame and fortune.  When I became a professional I saw it as a duty and service and frankly most of my colleagues saw it as that too.  We were there to serve people. Our independence and autonomy as professionals allowed us to protect our clients from governments and corporations alike.”

It wasn’t long after I heard him say that, that  a lawyer at my church told me “I think you can still can be a lawyer and a Christian in Canada but I no longer think you can be a Christian and a Corporate lawyer in Montreal.”

I can say the same is increasingly  true for doctors.  The lowest slur a doctor could make against another was to call him a “company doctor”. 

The ‘company doctor’ reached it’s a nadir during the years of the asbestos mining.  Miners were coughing up blood and dying all the while the doctors hired by the company and were paid exorbitantly essentially to lie and insist the problem wasn’t the  asbestos at all.  The miner instead, in classic ‘blame the victim’ was told he had ‘weak lungs’. It became the  great scandal of the era exposing corrupt courts, government, corporations and the doctors involved..  Science eventually prevailed as today we know and diagnose “asbestos lungs’. 

It should be understood that a doctor may give his opinion in court ,which remains a 19th century rationalist construct and sees the world in black and white as opposed to the multi factorial quantum universe considerations of 21st century rainbow science.  The ridiculousnesss of such ‘opinions’ was highlighted best by the farce of the OJ Trial with all its dream team and ignorance of DNA. 75% of the fruitfly DNA is the same as Human DNA. 

In British Columbia “Moynihan’s Law’  was enacted essentially to reign in the competing claims of ‘expert witnesses”.  Moynihans’s Law insisted that expert opinions be predominantly objective and serve the judge not the solely the lawyers paying them.  Some of the insurance company expert witnesses were paid so exorbitantly as to make the ‘company doctors’ of the asbestos mine era look like altar boys.   Tragically I was obliged to teach a judge the history of this in recent years, as he appeared to have missed out on the insanity of the courts that required a specific new “Moynihans’s law” to reign in the ‘expert testimony ‘ of competing factions.  Perjury laws have always existed but do appear to be rarely used as increasingly the courts move away from the ‘truth’ standard of old.  “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” is no longer associated with the modern court but rather remembered as a line from the Perry Mason era. 

The judge appeared unaware of Dr. Jay Lifton’s seminal book, the “Nazi Doctors” which addressed the whole issue of the ‘company’ or ‘government doctor’ in exquisite horrifying detail.  

It should not reflect badly on this judge because we’re collectively seeing this phenomena today  in the ‘fake news’ . The media was once constrained by the idea of ‘fact’ but today has  lost all track of the very notion of  ‘objective’ and now sells ‘facts’ as ‘opinions’ to the highest bidder.  Judges, themselves, have historically been considered’ corrupt’ as their opinions have been on occasion bought as readily as world soccer players.  The remaining issue today ,as Canadian culture devolves into multiculturalism,  increasingly,  is not whether someone will sell out their integrity but at how low a price.

Around  the world in other jurisdictions and cultures the issue is not whether to bribe the official ther how little one can give without insulting   government representative. The whole idea of the ‘tip’ which once was only an issue in hotels and restaurants is the very basis of business and law in`many countries.  

The next worst ‘slur’a doctor could have against him was that he was a ‘pharmaceutical company doctor’. Some pharmaceutical companies hired doctors to promote their medications and rewarded those who ‘sold’ medications by down playing or denying risks while celebrating success.  I was hired only a couple of times by one drug company to give talks to family physicians about new produce.  I was subsequently   told by  that company that  I was ‘too objective’ and hadn’t ‘sold’ enough of  the product. . I took that a compliment but it caused me to look askance at some of my colleagues who took pride in being consider ‘trendsetters’ by some in the pharmaceutical industry. They considered it a compliment to be called ‘drug pushers for the multinationals’ and paraded their academic and financials rewards with gusto.   “Unhinged: the Trouble with Psychiatry” by Dr. Daniel Carlat discusses this problem in depth. 

It became so egregious an issue in medicine  that physicians in academic settings and journals are collectively now required to give notice of their ‘conflicts of intererst’.   At the beginning of a lecture a doctor is required to put up a slide indicating which drug companies or businesses had paid him for this lecture or his research in this area.  

Unfortunately the licensing bodies for professions, in general, like the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, have not as yet had such a renaissance. The conflicts of interest that influence hiring, appointments,committe membership of non professionals,  their  political and fashionable decisions remain darkly opaque.

  

This practice has been in place for decades and naturally doctors wish that politicians and bureaurats would be required to do the same housekeeping regarding ‘conflicts of interest” and ‘lobby groups.” The partisanship of bureaucrats is a huge problem since they are required to be 'objective' but increasingly in Canada it has been exposed that government bureaucrats are Liberal biased.  To avoid this in many countries and eras the whole government apparatus was overturned and replaced by the followers of the winning party.

Given the scandals  over the foreign influence on Hillary Clinton and Justin Trudeau by Islamic countries and the alleged influence on Trump by Russia , politics seems mired like the media and courts outside the promises of the 21st century.  Escobar, the great drug lord used to brag that he had bought both the Republicans and the Democrats, hedging his bets, not that that did him much good in the long run. 

Doctors addressed this issue of autonomy first in the Hippocratic Oath of Ancient Greece.  I’ve taken the revitalized Hippocratic Oath of today since the ethical and moral foundations of professionalism have been increasingly eroded by government intrusion. The ‘do no harm’ clause is all but obsolete now  the ‘abortion industry” and recently  ‘euthanasia industry’ have completely won over the prevailing  government and their bureaucrats so reminiscent of the 'banal' of Arendt's writings.   Further, the various ‘codes’ of doctors in the western world were influenced by the “sanctity of life’ premise  inherent in Christian religion which inherited and refined the Judeo Graeco Roman traditions from which Western Civilization arose.  Other cultures have not had this notion of ‘sanctity of life’.

Further the ideas of where on the continuum the doctor sits regarding the collective and the individual are wholly different than what most Canadians assume.  Also the 'accountability' of the doctor in different countries is wholly different from the local ever changing responsibility of the doctor and indeed the health care system. This was never better reviewed than the greatest scandal of hospital administration of our time, the finding of the man dead for 36 hours in the Canadian teaching hospital and the abdication of accountability of administration.

There is also distinctly different ideas of cause and effect and accountability in eastern and western 'culture' which affect the very practice of medicine by doctors depending on training and background.

It was no surprise that Dr. Kellie Leitch, a brilliant physician and accomplished paediatric surgeon, should spearhead the importance of 'Canadian values' in this time when the dope smoking pretty haired selfie snapping Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was insisting there was no 'Canadian culture' and hence no 'Canadian values'.  Ironically he also said that Quebec French  speaking Prime Ministers were superior to English speaking Prime Ministers when his basic premise was that there was no such thing as a Canadian ‘culture’. While denying Canada 'culture' and denying Canadian 'values'  he insisted on the superiority of the French speaking. 

The word ‘culture’ derived from the Latin word ‘cultus’, ‘to care’ and from the French word to ‘cultivate’ or to ‘fill the ground’.  Well no one in their right mind would doubt that Dr. Leitch cares or is a highly cultivated individual who has done a lion’s share of work, there continues to be complaints about PM Justin Trudeau, simply not caring about Canada, and not by his personal history having much to do with cultivation and work.  Unfortunately Dr. Leitch’s insightfulness flew over the stoned heads of easily offended young followers of the Prime Minister. 

The ‘private’ physician retained their autonomy and worked for the patient just as the lawyer and accountant and engineer primarily served their client.  Historically the true ‘statesman’ served the country as a whole not the entrenched interests of corporations like Bombadier or the  urbans tastes of Montreal female voters.  

The ‘business’ of profession however always was tied to the idea of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.  As the “private” physician was working directly for the patient even though an insurance company might well be paying the bill, the doctor’s greatest concern was the ‘patient’s health’.  This was before the Hydra of  Cultural Marxism's weaponized political correctness redefined 'health' like the 'renaming' of 'gender" as something other than the ‘morbidity and mortality’ of science.   

Today the ‘insurance doctor’ is the next greatest ‘slur’ that can be made against a doctor.  It’s a bit wrong as there clearly are good and bad insurance companies. But clearly if the patient becomes sick and unable to work and provide insurance payments it’s in the interest of the insurance company to ‘de list’ that member as they are no longer a viable ‘client’.  Further, the worst insurance companies use and abuse the courts to offer the least inclusive definition of health and spend fortunes on lawyers fighting claims. 

Canada is a single party insurance scheme so that the ‘government doctor’ and the ‘insurance doctor’ ‘slurs’ can overlap.  Historically in public and private endeavours there was this area where the public need for finance existed because of the size and ‘risk’ of the project and in areas where there was no likelihood of profit but that as a society we collectively saw a need to care for others in a way private sources could not afford to.  

Our present government appears to be giving billions to foreign countries while not caring for it’s own sick and old.  The sick and old and those who suffer catastrophic  injuries were the principle reason for development of the Canadian Health Care system.  Tommy Douglas and those who were  principally Christian doctors of the  Saskatchewan model would obviously roll over in their graves  if they were to see the actions of the ‘company doctors’ and ‘government doctors’ of today.  Government spending today,  is to those early men and women of Canada,  a total corruption of the ideals of Canadian traditions.  Not surprisingly, Liberals get around this by indeed,   denying Canadian culture or tradition.

The highest paid doctors today are government doctors  and cosmetic surgeons while the front line workers in all fields are policed to no end and treated as the enemy by their superiors because they have been given the unenviable task of ‘rationing health care’ while the government doctors and political doctors make endless promises that are simply impossible to meet.

Professionals say that there is no ‘autonomy’ or ‘profession’ any more because the structure of our present centralized communist leaning government which is totalitarian authoritarian and diametrically opposed to the freedom of the individual and wholly supportive of the ‘collective’.   Indeed many professionals have considered that the ‘unions’ which developed in a much more hostile relationship to government may be the answer to the failing health care system.  Some doctors have approached the Teamsters feeling the whole idea of ‘profession’ is defunct in face of government corruption and the cancerous growth of the government burocracy to the detriment of professions and their clients.  

Canada has a history of having had a purely ‘government socialist based’ health care system which was associated with the worst morbidity and mortality statistics in the Canada. This was the Indian Affairs government health care system which is now being used as a "model" for all of Canada despite is at times horrendous failures.  

Given that immigrant doctors increasingly come from countries which do not share  Canadian ‘values’ of ‘sanctity of life’ , the importance of the individual, freedom, and libertarianism and other such ‘pesky’ ideas it is increasingly no surprise that the government calls’ physicians’ not by their ‘professional designation’ but increasingly as ‘health care workers’ as a collective job title. Ethically there fore in the government eyes they have no difference from the cleaning staff in the hospitals.  

It concerns me as the corruption of government and media and the refusal of the courts to move forward that doctors medical professionalism is now defined solely by ‘company doctors’ and dominated by ‘conflicts of interest’ that soon it will be said of doctors that 90% give the 10% a bad name.  It is no surprise that 75 % of Canadian doctors would not recommend medicine at present in Canada. 

As a dinosaur doctor I am increasingly concerned about health care not as much as a provider but because I might well need services and can see from the desperate experiences of my patients that they are utterly frustrated, dissatisfied, and wholly crippled by the government callousness, Naturally their opinions never appear in the government propaganda media or are always attributed to the doctors and nurses rather than the top heavy administration.  They express repeatedly concerns about  inefficiency and corruption the feeling that their basic needs and values are not being met.

A company doctor explained to me that I ‘cared too much’ and must ‘lower my standards’ as well as ‘learn to lie’ as he did for he enjoyed greatly his well rewarded government company doctor lifestyle.  I personally have to consider every day whether I want to continue as a ‘company doctor’ or if I should, like the other dinosaurs of my era retire early and accept that Christians, godly people in general,  moral people and all the doctors of old, especially my most esteemed mentors, and Tommy Douglas, a politically incorrect Baptist minister, are all  no longer welcome in Canada.  Insurance company models also routinely reward the physicians who do the least for the patient and save the government the most money.

This was a 'joke' of my surgical training where heart surgeons and lung surgeons would compete among themselves as to who could use the least 'thread' as the administration had a fashion of the month campaign to get the surgeons to save money in the operations.  At the time I thought it was something out of MASH where no show better defined the oxymoron on 'military intelligence". Yet the surgeons explained that the administrators were more concerned with their budgets than the lives of the patients. Indeed I caused myself no end of difficulty complaining that a small town administrator had robbed the hospital budget for a baby incubator so that he could have a new desk and chair with better wood panelling.  

I do envy the migrants who routinely return to their ‘homes’ whereas I personally feel my own home and profession have been destroyed.  This feeling has grown strongest since  I was told that  Dr. William Osler is no longer considered a ‘professional’. Clearly Dr. Osler is no longer welcome in Canada and  should never  apply to work here.

Jesus, the greatest healer of all time, would not be welcomed  either.  Jesus  was vulgar, kept the wrong company,  swore and behaved badly, the epitome of a politically incorrect individual.  Politically correctness and professionalism were once diametrically opposed.  Today a doctor kills or heals as the prevailing mood dictates. It’s just fashion.  Medicine is theatre.  The Kardashian’s are the new models of medicine.    

If love is the answer

If love is the answer, then you would defend yourself and your family and friends.  I just watched Felon last night. It was a powerful movie about a man falsely accused and incarcerated for defending his family.  It’s message encouraged one to consider just how many people are in jail who are indeed not guilty.
False accusations are increasing exponentially with the rise again of socialism.  In communist countries ,the ultimate expression of socialism, the standing joke was when three people were gathered together, one of them was an informer.  In socialism there is always someone who believes they can improve their lot by accusing another to the authorities.
Those who do make false accusations are sometimes just garden variety psychopaths and sociopaths, more common than many believe. The other sort  are developmentally psychologically immature and falsely accuse their neighbours to please their mommy or daddy, whichever one they feel rejected by and to psychologically conceal their own ‘dirty’ secret.  Of course there are good citizens. But historically part of good citizenship was the ‘openess’ of knowing who your accuser was.  Today ‘mind your own business’ goes hand in hand with the realization that a life in ‘witness protection’ might not be what one personally envisioned.  The check and balance of ‘accusation’ among good citizenry was that it was not done ‘lightly’ as it is today with everyone ‘offended’ and everyone a ‘critic’.
In the Judeo-Christian view from which western laws derived it was taught ‘thou shalt not judge’ and ‘thou shalt not bear false witness’ was one of the 10 commandments along side ‘thou shalt not murder’.  Jesus taught that if you see fault in your neighbour you should first pluck the timber out of your own eye before trying to take the sliver out of another’s.
Yet today, with a society ‘externalized’ by Hollywood and other media celebrations of the evil villains and superhero’s , along with all the propaganda, self reflection is discouraged.  Blame is the name of the game.  Deny deny deny is the answer the lawyer tells the accused.  Notice it’s not ‘silence’ but ‘deny’.  This message to the innoscent and guilty alike is given again and  again in the ever more popular police stories.  From the earliest age children are taught to lie even if they need no encouragement.
If love is the answer, then one needs to beware of Canada’s increasing failure to address ‘perjury’ in the courts.  Further in beurocratic agencies false accusations are sadly apart of the industry of encouraging people to spy on their neighbours and report their neighbours to the authorities.
This is seen in the ‘anonymous ‘tip’ lines’ which are naturally commonly abused.  The extent of the abuse is seen in social services where disputes between mothers on the play ground for whatever reason are sometimes followed by that awful call to child’s services with the claim that one neighbour is doing something wrong.
That these are not being investigated and front and centre of any discussion reflects the need of authorities to maintain their autocratic positions by any means. The loss of ‘truth’ in society is just one casualty that follows this drive to war and anarchy created by the fundamental failing of law and order.
If there is no truth there is no real law and order. In communist countries truth died first.
We are seeing the ‘fake news’ of CBC news, Vancouver Sun and CNN.  These alt left and alt right media compete in lies. Harvard University reported that 75% of CNN news coverage during the recent election was highly biased (essentially ‘untrue’).
Truth is the first casualty of war.
If love is the answer, then truth is the question.

Almeda, CBC and Fake News

Alameda University and Master of Divinity and Fake News

-William Hay, MD FRCPC CCSAM

I wrote about this some years back but the twisted tale gets even more convoluted. I told Dr. James Houston the former chancellor of Regent College that God had a sense of humor.  Dr. Houston has a great sense of humor and he thought this a funny story indeed.

It’s most recent twist is a request from a CBC news reporter to discuss my Almeda Degree. I’ve been vociferous about CBC Fake News for a year, which is rather disappointing as I’ve been a fan of CBC programs for decades. How sad that CBC News once reliable has gone over to the Dark Side.

I have lots of prestigious “Paper’, a Medical Degree from University of Manitoba, and a Canadian Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. In addition I had my FLEX, the American Medical Degree, and subspeciality certification in Addiction Medicine, in Canada, the US and Internationally.  I’ve taught at University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia.  I’ve 30 years of medical and psychiatric clinical experience and am an acknowledged expert in Canadian and American courts.  

I didn’t ‘need’ more paper.  But I’m a Ship’s Captain having sailed solo in winter to Hawaii.  Technically I can ‘marry’ at sea but I wanted a piece of paper. My psychiatrist friend had got a piece of paper on line and married his daughter and I thought such a diploma might come in a handy if I wanted to place a blessing and a curse on some unsuspecting couple. I’m personally divocred and women have aborted my babies suggesting that even the idea of being married by someone such as myself would be suspicious. A fake marriage? 

I also have been studying Spirituality and Christian theology formally for longer than I have been a doctor. At the University of Winnipeg I studied Literature of the Bible with Dr. Carl Ridd back in the 70’s.  I grew up a Christian and have studied the Bible and Christianity all my life, studying all manner of courses in churches and teaching Christianity, prayer and meditation. I published a number of papers on Christianity, religious studies and comparative religions.  The most prestigious was an article I published in the Journal of Science and Religion.  

I also studied Yoga with the Self Realization Fellowship of Paramahansa Yogananda obtaining my diploma from that institute, travelling to Encinadas and later India.  That was back in the 70’s and 80’s before I studied Hypnosis and Self Hypnosis with the Ericksonian Institute.  A long time fan of Dr. Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response I published a paper on meditation and blood pressure treatment back when I was delivering babies and doing surgery. 

Around that time I was asked to teach a class of young women Hatha yoga and threw out my bag trying to impress these girls with a humble presentation meant to help overcome ego. 

I have never missed an opportunity to study with religious leaders of a variety of religions, spending hours in sweat lodges with indigenous elders, going through various ceremonies, studying Tai Chi and taoism, studying Buddhism with a fellow physician, taking courses in Hinduism, learning from a Sufi, spending time with an Orthodox scholar, dating a Bahi and an aetheist and learning from osmosis. I have learned from Sikhs and Hindus and recently from a Zoroastrian.  I studied the Classics and learned the pagan religions of Greece, Rome and Egypt. I have enjoyed  reading the major texts of world religions.  I read the Torah and discussed Judaism at length with my mensch friend Sam and took guidance from Dr. Rabbi Twerski. I definitely enjoyed meeting the Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu and have been blessed in countless spiritual encounters with men and women I could only admire and hope perhaps to emulate in some small way.

Though I ‘d been president of Amalgated Baptist Youth groups I would go on to publish a paper on how I was a better doctor than I was a Christian in the Medical Post. .  This was around the time when I had travelled to Israel on pilgrimage and began decades of travel to various spiritual sites, often designated Heritage sites.  One day I hope to write a book of these travels and the meaning they had for me. I’ve blogged them with the photographs I’ve taken and discussed the various followers I’ve talked with along with the spiritual leaders I’ve met.

About 20 years ago I began studying theology in night school formally focussing on Christian Spirituality, taking many courses over the years at Vancouver School of Theology, St. Mark’s Catholic College and Regent College.  I’d also taken church courses like Alpha and studied the Holy Spirit with the Pentecostals. I was meditating with a Benedictine Nun at the time and reading books like neuroscientist’s Mario de Beuregaard’s Spiritual Brain.  I especially liked How the Irish Saved Civilization series too. Though raised Baptist and been a member of the United Church of Canada I was formally baptized Anglican and became a reader at Christ Church Cathedral.  

I was doing readings and discussing ministry with pastors and ministers and thought I’d like a Masters of Divinity in Christian Spirituality or Ecumenical Studies.  This would allow me to marry on my yacht, a dubious matter and would also document this informal aspect of my training which was increasingly a direction I was taking in my addiction medicine clinical work where it was obvious that addiction was conceptualized not just as a disease but also a spiritual malaise.  

When I looked for an institute that would provide such a degree I found that none were indeed ecumenical. I could get a masters in religious studies and having shared with various institutes what I had accomplished was repeatedly told that I could indeed obtain with some extra study what I wanted but nothing was ‘ecumenical’.  Comparative religions yes, religious studies yes, but nothing like Christian Ecumenical Spirituality.  The Baptists have their M Div universities, the United Church theirs , the Catholics theirs, the Hindus and Muslims and Taoist their’s . I found that interesting because it appeared the religions had attempted through actual amalgamation religions like the Bahai’s and perhaps Muslims and  perhaps Mormons to create a religious equivalent of Esperanzo while individually academically  they really were quite divided.  I didn’t want an Anglican Master of Divinity as I really didn’t want a job. I was a Doctor. 

The music director of my church called me, a Christian Psychiatrist, an Oxymoron because Freud had been an aetheist and he considered psychiatrists Priests of Science. I told him that while I was Freudian trained I’d also studied in depth the theist Dr. Carl Jung and been mentored by the great Christian spiritual psychiatrists Dr. White, Dr. Gutowski and Dr. Ney. 

That’s when I came across the idea in California of on line degrees based on experience and review and questions by on line faculty.  I liked the secular nature of Almeda ironically and frankly for $1000 I was pleased to get an Almeda University degree that was backed by the government of California.  The process of finding all the paper that supported the above studies and more, getting the various universities to forward evidence of my attendance, finding copies of publications and answering endless questions in this regards was itself fascinating. Then I got this diploma.  

Psychologically at the time I was also somewhat miffed by the general institutional university’s monetary elitism as the costs of study were becoming exorbitant and exclusive for my patients.  I had had scholarlships but the education debts that my patients carried were a form of indentured servitude. Yet their future employment increasingly depended on these diplomas. Also increasingly students from other countries arrived with diplomas which had no real equivalency with Canadian or American or British or European or Indian or South African degrees. I saw an increasing disparity in this and learned around the same time that the University of Toronto had granted medical degrees to students who had been failed by the faculty but by threatening legal action passed by the administration.  In California there were simply not enough positions for the number of people who wanted to study and on line universities were becoming the answer.  I’d studied Aboriginal Studies in distance learning from University of Waterloo in the 80’s and have maintained my medical scholarship in part by constant listening to medical tapes, then discs the USB sticks in my car or truck.

I supported this process and thought there really was a place for experiential equivalency. This came about when I was training nurse practitioners who were doing the work of a general practitioner though not in a hospital setting.  I thought Almeda was a phenomena but clearly institutions have an invested interest in exclusivity and branding.  

I followed the scandal of Almeda and other on line institutions which were increasingly exposed as traditional and conventional universities increasingly replaced these original rogues with their own brands. 

At the time I was asked to be on the board of an off shore medical university by a former ambassador. The whole issue of education changing with some off shore universities being acknowledged as equivalent while others didn’t meet the varying standards.  It was also apparent that much of the certification process at the institutional level depended on whose hand your greased and by how much.  

I’d met doctors from some countries who knew less than first year medical students while some countries graduated doctors superior to myself and classmates. When I was accepted for a position at Stanford I was considered one of the ‘foreign doctors’ and discussed this when I was interviewed at Berkeley and in a Virginia position.  Increasingly much of Continuing Medical Education, which I’ve dutifully completed with honours and excess is highly suspect.

About the same time a beurocratic doctor who to my mind was best described as frankly, stupid, and  received an honary degree causing me to reflect on the whole ‘business’ of education for  cash and influence of the honorary degree. Wasnt the online experiential degree an honourable extension of this existing questionable practice?  

I just learned that the Engineers are adamantly questioning the relevance of professional studies past training since the nature of professional standards is self study and self awareness and task specific. Now i’ve heard that many other professions are questioning the training in their departments and finding that these certifications and recertification amount to little more than a money grab as they’ve been shown increasingly to be scientifically irrelevant.  They have made a very lucrative business of charging students who agreed to pay up front over and over again for the same training which is increasingly irrelevant to the older members in the field. 

My Queen’s Counsel friend shared one night how his legal work is so highly subspecialized that there are only 2 or 3 in Canada doing it. The continuing legal education in his field is generally set by academics at the level of law students with little relevance given the generalities of the knowledge base. I feel the same. Worse in my continuing medical education certified training there are increasing sign in sheets and the didactic lectures are the only thing valued by these low brows in the increasing policing of doctors education by low level political factions intent on making more money as ‘educators’.  The best education I have at conferences is the discussions over coffee with colleagues and rarely in the didactic presentations where we go back to sitting in desks and being obedient students as fun as that is.

So psychologically I was glad to have this On Line Degree and put it up on my wall . I’d a diploma up there also which declared  “I bought the band a drink’.   Indeed it is one of the fancier ones and was only first noticed months after I put it on the wall.  Both degrees allowed me to ask patients what they wanted a degree for and what was education. I've been encouraging patients for ever to get education while bemoaning Canada's tendency to mediocrity. A master's degree is well supported in Canada and repays the effort but my phD friends and medicine specialists versus surgeons feel that the further specialization its not reimbursed as it is in the US and Europe. 

It could be said that I had some ambivalence about the academic institutions especially since a government in my former home province had under funded education with the result that my own Medical Degree, once one of the top three in Canada had been devalued by these thug politicians none of whom had much education at all among themselves.  There was a mediocrity growing in Canada and the education systems were in chaos. My second university had fallen in 'value' whereas my first and third degrees were ''devalued". 

My father used to complain that he had to stop hiring union men because increasingly the carpenters despite their “trade” papers seemed solely to be incestuously related but lacking the the capacity to distinguish hammer from saw. In those contracts he was required to hire union he was hard pressed to complete the job as opposed to other contracts where he could hire individually according to merit.

In Canada the illiteracy rate of high school graduates with the stoppage of national high school proficiency exams became such an issue that universities eventually introduced admission exams because Canadian high school diplomas no longer had currency with institutions of higher learning. Many argued the was a product of liberalism socialist  or communist influence. Everyone was. ‘Entitled’ to a degree rather than being required to ‘earn’ a degree.

It was also easier and cheaper for me to get an American license to practice medicine than to great a Canadian license in another province because of the increasing politicization and Balkanization of education in Canada. It remains the case that Ontario doesn't quite acknowledge medical education from other provinces charging several order more to Canadians to have their training acknowledged than any province charges Ontario in return despite Ontario degrees being the most suspicious in the country given how many are obtained by legal threat.  

Spiritually I was amused at the degree too. One of  my favourite religious teachers had been Brother Lawrence who was the monastery’s kitchen help.  

Then I heard Almeda as an institution died. The folk just closed up shop. This interesting innovator It was presumably beaten down by existing institutions and laws and killed.  I really don't know what they did to bring upon themselves systemic wrath but the there obviously was some back rooms decision to regulate the university degree granting process. 

This was at the time I’d bought a hard bottomed rubber boat which sprung a leak.  When I tried to get parts the company had gone out of business.   This was just capitalism and market forces at work. The same had occurred with the radar I had when it was damaged. I couldn’t get parts. I have a hard drive from a company now defunct and I only learned of it when I found it didn't interface with new software. Interesting exclusive parallels with market forces and centralized regulatory forces competing.

About this time I also finally found years later a university offering Ecumenical degrees in divinity and theology.  This was at Columbia University and the Irony was that the program was started by a psychiatrist with interest in divinity.  I’ve considered taking classes and do hope to continue to study theology in formal didactic classes alongside my ongoing informal study.  The trouble is that increasingly degrees are being issued with a shelf life. I didn't renew an American Certificate I had because the prestigious institution could only vouch for its own diploma for five years. As a learning machine professional I was interested then that these institutions of supposed higher education were unable to produce a training program of the likes of my medical degree which was a life long degree with no shelf life limitation. I don't think i’d stop being a medical doctor if my university stopped paying the rent or defaulted on a loan. My Master of Divinity degree retains inherently the value of equivalence of the citizenship status of a person whose country has been dissolved by war perhaps.

My personal learning includes going to places like Instanbul where I hired a Turkish professor of religion and history and was guided for days through mosques and museums studying Islam as well as visiting the underground churches of Cappadocia.  I have had a number of torture victims as patients who had escaped from Muslim prisons and countries.  At the same time I’d been a presenter in Azerbaijan with a most delightful Muslim physician who answered my religious questions about his religious experience devoutly.  In the last few years because of the horrid ignorance of the Canadian politicians regarding religion I've been reading more extensively about the church development and religion and state interface. Where once I was reading Kierkegaard and Buber I found answers in Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood. I'm also reading the history of council and creeds withe the dicussions of orthodoxy and apostasy. At the the of King Lear he says “Lets talk of court things, whose in whose out”. Because the matter of whose in the in crowd as in the high school yard chum circle functions well beyond the school yard. Indeed President Obama gave out medals once reserved for the courageous and brave to comedians as the Queen Knighted Beatles and the Nobel Prize for Literature was given to Bob Dylan. 

The mystery is with everyone shelling out experiential degrees who indeed did Almeda offend, whose hand did they fail to grease and why as a true innovator in the process did they fail. I expect the answer is money. They simply didn't have the resources to muddle on like other similar bodies had through history. Time magazine with its ‘person of the year’ awards survived the probable error of the infamous Hitler choice. Perhaps if Almeda stuck to Divinity degrees no one would have cared but their administration degrees might have been used by too many Canadian Senators resulting in that once august body having shameful ignominy today. I am glad I didn't marry anyone because they might well have overnight joined the ranks of the unmarried without the blessing of the legal system which is making a killing off an institution once principally a source of ecclesiastical revenue.

I reported a fake doctor who had risen in the ranks of our local government concealing his never having obtained a doctorate from the august instition he claimed he had. What fascinated me was that he had appealed so much to the authorities. He was consulting on policy and nor practicing in a physical manner where our Fake surgeon surgeons or Fake pilots show up rather obviously. This fellow merely had the gift for the gab and said what our local government wanted to hear. His recommendations were so alien to the university position I knew that I questioned his credentials. Sure enough he was an imposter. But his policy persists today as abhorrent as it is because the government wanted a stamp of approval on their cost cutting nonsense. The matter which interested me most was his success at fooling literally hundreds if not thousands before I personally called him out as a fake, a liar, a fraud. It was a very dangerous tim. 

It goes to the naming of a thing - godly or ungodly. Are the fruit trees Adam named wrongly named today as we found only later that Adam disobeyed God. Are the names given since the Apple less or more valid. 

Personally I see the future as closer to retirement, some five or 10 years out, with the idea that I’ll see myself studying more religion and theology and spirituality, meditating more and writing and reading more in the area of spirituality. I don’t know if I’ll marry anyone at sea.  I have my ship’s captains papers for that as it is though I believe it would require me being in international waters. I may have to get a new degree if I want to host a dock party wedding and sactifymthe occasion.

But it was fun to have a CBC Fake News journalist call me and ask me about what is now being  called a ‘fake degree’.  I don’t know that it is. It’s a bit like when a country changes its flag.  Like Canada today, increasingly a communist police state with all the assaults on freedom speech and the death of journalism.  I grew up with a journalist mother during the hey day of the Winnipeg Free Press and have watched  journalist friends leave Canada because they say news journalism can’t be done here any more.  I do believe one can be  a sports journalist still but I don’t know any more. Will hockey be as fake as soccer any day soon? 

I think it’s ironic that I get a divinity degree and the institution fails.  If I was grandiose I would think my intrinsic evil nature , that binary gnostic self,  had destroyed this institution.   Perhaps it’s  just a reminder that religious studies is an ongoing , one day at a time, matter.  Like my boat and radar I guess I may have worked my studies so hard that I simply need a new one.  

I laugh too, sure that the young CBC journalist who called was probably given the story by someone who I’ve insulted for being a pot head sharia communist Liberal liar who panders to the shirtless Prime Minister Trudeau who supports the destruction of freedom of speech with anti Semitic Islamaphobia legislation.  I still have the Master of Divinity Certificate from when it was considered ‘good’.  It’s a bit like Canadian Currency though. Since the liberals came into power my dollar is now only 70 cents on an American dollar. I much preferred it a couple of years ago when it was almost par with the American dollar. 

I’m actually thankful because it brought me back to reflect on this journey and how I really must spend more time in my spiritual pursuits having been way laid by political discussions which do not appeal to me nearly as much as talking about Jesus or asking why Christians can’t create a ‘core’ study program like medicine with it’s subspeciality degrees.  I love medicine that way. After a generalist degree in medicine and surgery,  subspecialized in Community Medicine, Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. I 

think it would be great if there was a 4 years religious studies program and then you  could get  a Christian degree, a Catholic degree, a Judaic degree, Moslem degree, or a Hindu degree etc.  There is initially shallow generalist knowledge and later deeper specialist knowledge.   Thomas Merton was a much deeper student of east and west and I really have a long way to go.  

I believe there is one God. I believe that Jesus was the son of God and that humans are the children of God.  I believe what Jesus said summed up religion as later stated by Hillel, Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself.  I wrote a paper at Vancouver School of Theology on comparing heavens and concluded that Mark Twain’s description of heaven was the one I wanted.  

Yesterday I listened to a Methodist minister share his views on hope.  I hope to get a new Theology degree. I’ve got a new radar and a new boat to replace the previous hard bottomed dinghy.  I have hope that CBC News will one day stop being so Fake and that the present Liberal Government will be replaced by a government less promoting of drugs and impaired consciousness.  It seems fake to me.

But there is a fundamental confusion today about what is truth and what is fake.  I miss the blue on the Canadian flag I grew up with.   I do hope University of Manitoba and University of British Columbia maintain their standards.  Poor socialist Venezuelans today have a country that is unable to feed their people and no doubt their university degrees are becoming like their other paper currencies.  I don’t think I’d like to be operated by a doctor who graduated from Somalia or one who bought his degree with lawyers from University of Toronto. 

I think it’s ironic that my spiritual degree has returned to the little off shore island where it began.   Almeda was the brain child of some academics with an office  on a Caribean Island back when.

Addendum

I just learned that Almeda apparently had been bought in recent years by a Pakistani ‘diploma mill’  I received a call from the CBC News reporter today having written this after the email arrived last week.  

I immediately wondered if this was where Prime Minister Trudeau’s gifts of Canadian tax payer’s millions of dollars  to Pakistan was going.  The plot thickens. What is true and what is fake?

I have agreed to talk with the CBC reporter next week to discuss this. 

My natural paranoia is such that I can’t help but think that CBC News would take an interest in this after I’ve been such an out spoken critic of CBC Fake News.  The reporter denied knowing I was a critic of CBC yet admitted to reading my on line writing.  What is true?   

I’m especially a rather loud critic of the unholy relationship between CBC News and the Liberal government.  The Liberal government has given CBC news more money despite the increasing number of jokes circulating on the internet about CBC reporting. My personal favourite is  “Is it fake news or is it CBC?”   

I am thankful that the email occasioned my reflection on this which I share but I sensed that the motivation might well be an attempt at character assassination since the Liberals have excelled in Ad Hominem and all the CBC News seems mired in innuendo and suggestion.  Fear mongering always and what sells rather than what is true.  

So much of it does come down to the rhetoric “Appeal to Authority”.  Clearly CBC, Pakistan and Almeda today all have issues with Authority "image" .  My ‘spiritual’ authority is questionable as a ‘sinner’ .  My authority is as a doctor.   I do have a diploma which was validated by the California Education system.  But today it is questioned. 

That this was nearly a decade ago when Almeda was as valid as the CBC news of that era makes one question "perception".  What is the 'shelf life' on a story especially a CBC story. I find CBC news tedious because it sounds increasingly so much like Pravda and gives speculation and opinion rather than stating the 'facts' before getting into the talking heads.  Reuters retains some respectability as it continues to focus on fact more than the journalist, not that there is any objectivity since Heissenberg.  

 Tarek Fatah would say Pakistan has had image problems longer than Almeda or CBC so why is Trudeau giving them Canadian  money.  Why is CBC questioning education that originates in this Muslim country. Is this Islamaphobia? Is it news?  Whose paying for this.  What’s my part in it. Why me. Why today.  

Of course as a spiritual person, I ask what does God want me to know from this?  A thrice divorced man, I probably shouldn’t be marrying people?