“Best”, “Top” Doctor– Not So Fast!
Years ago articles online and in magazines started identify top doctors. Do you remember when it all started? It was a brilliant idea in concept. The premise was a logical one: a service interviewed doctors through surveys to find who among their peers they would send their family to in health situation, which doctors got top reviews by patients, and didn’t have malpractice issues, etc.
Who wouldn’t want to see that? Yes, of course, I was totally interested.
I quickly found out even back then when the lists came out that when I compared doctors in these “great” lists to patient reviews, they didn’t always jive, so I made sure to only pick those with top reviews on multiple sites from those lists. The first time I did that, I was rewarded with a top surgeon, hands down.
Fast forward a decade later, when I search for the best or top doctor, I am bombarded by not just one group doing this now, but many! Many websites claim they have identified the best doctor now.
How does that even make sense?
It absolutely doesn’t, and it’s a huge red flag something is up! You can’t have 10 different lists and have them all valid. And worse, it used to be five or ten doctors per health category. Now the lists are getting longer and longer. It’s raises my eyebrows high!
Logically you can guess these doctors draw in a lot of patients and a large revenue stream. Everyone will want to see them. So it would make sense these lists are lucrative. Very lucrative for doctors and the hospitals/healthcare systems they work for. It’s a gold mine!
So clearly there is a reason for this ideal premise to become corrupt, untrustworthy and flawed and when I dug, there is it! You can read about the homework others have done here and here. They explain it better than I could.
Furthermore, I have noticed two more jaw dropping elements in healthcare. These “top doctors” will take in patients, see them once and then push them off to other less popular, less liked colleagues to keep the revenue going.
I am just experiencing this firsthand right now. I saw a top doctor who billed me over $2.5K for a visit and blood tests (ridiculous!!!), only to suggest before our second visit, another doctor would be good to take over my care. And when I look at the other doctor, she has less experience, doesn’t even specialize in the area of care I am in need due to tests (which my current doctor does). It flat makes no sense except for the hospital to make more money and populate patients from their lucrative revenue stream to those who can’t drive it.
No thank you.
And last, hospitals and healthcare systems have wised up to the power of reviews. They are now controlling them on their own websites, which I have absolutely zero faith in. They can delete any negative review they get–it benefits them to do so!
So when I see reviews, if it comes from patients on a hospital website or a healthcare system, I refuse to even read them! I only trust third party reviews from patients on websites like healthgrades.com. And when you compare the hospital reviews to healthgrades, there are huge differences that should make you aware of what the truth is!
Tammy Lawrence-Daley
Video link
Tammy Lawrence-Daley talks of a horrible ordeal of being attacked at a resort in the Dominican Republic earlier this year. When you see photos of her, you can have nothing but sympathy for her.
However, when I listen to her story, I have so many questions. More questions then I expect after seeing her photos. It makes me question, while she obviously was attacked, is the story she is telling us how it really happened?
The very first red flag for me is when Tammy smiles when she says she remembers that “grunt he made” when when she was attacked.
Why the happy thought here? It’s oddly out of place.
The reporter says that Tammy was pummeled, and she could feel the bones in her face crack and her teeth break, yet if you listen to her story she says she never saw his face.
This news report says he beat her for a TWO hours. That’s a long time to not see his face or have identifying information, don’t you think?
Did he beat her for two hours in an open area? Where did this take place that no one could see her or hear her? This is a resort. There are people everywhere in these places. Maybe not in a hallway for 10 minutes, but we are talking two hours!
After the beating and only then was she dragged into a “dank crawlspace”. I would assume no one ever goes into that crawlspace, but somehow her husband, not the hotel, found her?
What are the odds?
Also, notice there are no details of her husband’s search, how he felt, and how he found her? It’s all missing.
Worse, neither of the two have corroborating emotions to substantiate their story. Yes, she was beaten, but she shows no fear, sadness, terror — any negative emotion that would fit with a stranger beating like this. Instead, I see positive emotions when I least expect it.
Then she says, “All I could think of was my fath…my husband was going to find me dead.”
WHAT?
First why would you think of your father, unless your husband beat you?
And why would your husband find you dead if you were in a “dark” and “dank” crawlspace? Her father wasn’t even on this vacation from what they are reporting.
This doesn’t even fit with the story she is telling us!
The husband’s emotions don’t fit with this story, either.
And who is this maid?
If she was part of this, there is a chance she can’t speak out against the resort, so I will accept that is a possibility. But the nurse translated that she is safe??
Or does she mean she translated what the nurse said? If so, does Tammy speak Spanish? Otherwise that is bizarre, too!
Did the maid hear her whole story to know what happened to her to know she was safe?? Do you just tell random people they are safe when they are bloody. I wouldn’t.
I’m also very troubled with her “generic” statement, “It’s not safe for women to be alone.”
Wait a minute!!!!
If I was attacked at THIS resort and I knew there was an attacker on the lose THERE, I wouldn’t be telling women to be careful everywhere. I’d be specifically warning them THIS RESORT IS DANGEROUS until this man is found. But she ironically doesn’t do that.
That’s a lot of red flags for a very short story.
McStay Case: Merritt Found Guilty
This week a jury found Chase Merritt guilty of murdering the McStay family back in 2010. The McStays were a family of four from California with two little children who vanished into thin air. Chase Merritt was the business partner of father Joseph McStay.
The McStay’s left their house in what appeared to be a quick exit leaving eggs on the counter, were thought to have possibly gone to Mexico, though it was never confirmed and they were never seen alive again.
Not long after the family disappeared, in March of 2010, weeks after the family went missing, the brother of missing Joseph McStay, Michael, was quoted as saying to the Orange County Register, “My fear is that I’m looking for two adult shallow graves and … my two nephews’ crosses.”
That statement was hair-raising! Who says that when their brother and his family is missing?
Mind you, the family wasn’t found in their “shallow graves” for years after that statement, and yes, they were in two separate shallow graves in 2013!
That has deeply troubled me, but that alone was not enough. There was more. Every time I watched Michael McStay talk in interviews, I saw red flag after red flag.
Every single time.
I also watched a long interview with Chase Merritt on CNN, who has now been found guilty, talk at length, and I did not see red flags.
It took a long time for this case to come to trial. I have not followed the trial, so if there were interesting facts revealed, I’d love to hear more about it.
The Liar’s Projections
You know the scenario: a couple of people are arguing. You listen in trying to discern who is being truthful. You hear different versions of events, and oftentimes, you are totally confused where the truth lies. One is accusing the other of lying, but you aren’t sure who lied.
Then if you are involved in the conflict, that person may start calling you a liar, too! Or if you are not involved other people become liars! BAM! Hotspot.
Sometimes everyone becomes a liar…but the person who speaks the loudest and throws the most accusations.
What is going on? Have you experienced this before?
When one person starts accusing everyone else of lying while defending their honesty, they are actually indirectly pointing the finger back at themselves.
It’s a form of psychological projection.
In projection, the liar is projecting their behavior onto others as a defense mechanism, whether it be consciously or subconsciously. And it doesn’t stop with accusing people of being liars as their projection. They may expand their accusations to include many of their negative behaviors–behaviors they, themselves, can’t own.
I always take notice of this behavior. I ask myself is there truly an injustice of great proportion (usually not), or am I witnessing projection?
It’s very rare that one person is honest and everyone else is lying–essentially ganging up against one party unfairly or by being mislead. People in groups are usually more aware and honest. It happens, of course, but I’d say less than 1 in 100 scenarios. And in those situations it usually involves confusion caused by a few with malicious intent, rather than malicious intent by many.
Projection is often done by people who have insecurity issues and can’t look at their own behavior. They are usually never wrong, either.
So next time you see someone accuse multiple people of wronging them and lying, look closest at the person making the accusations as your source of dishonesty.
