Bobby, Stoyki and Rache

Another dog's breakfast staffing for Gus yesterday afternoon!

I fail to understand how Rachel Nelson, the social worker nominally hosting Gus' staffings, can list out a dozen or so items of protocol and manners logically intended to enable some degree of productivity in this kind of meeting, and then consistently and repeatedly violate every single point herself! This was the second time in a row that she did this. It was not subtle, but she apparently had no self awareness whatsoever. 

Robert Sharpe (supposedly an M.D. psychiatrist -- one might think he could act professionally) and Stoyka Meyer (supposedly a Ph.D. psychologist -- same thought) were almost as bad as Rachel. The rules were obviously for Gus and me, but not for the treatment team. 

Bobby and Stoyki were also very insistent that they should be respectfully addressed as Doctor.... I can't blame them for that. After all, they're both working in a state institution where their "patients" mostly hate so-called "treatment", and only bear it as a lighter criminal sentence than prison. It's not like Gus, or anyone else enslaved on the EMHC plantation, ever came to Bobby or Stoyki willingly, thinking they might get help. Bobby and Stoyki are fake doctors in fact, at least in their capacities on the EMHC plantation. People in the most degrading jobs ("forensic mental health professional" -- i.e., overseer) always tend to be the ones who must demand respect with the highest energy.

It might also have something to do with Bobby and Stoyki both being non-permanent IDHS employees. I'm pretty sure they're both independently contracted, to make up for all the doctors who have quit to find honest jobs. I've rarely encountered such obsessive superiority from long-time, real Department staff, no matter what their position. Vic Gill and I got along famously most of the time. (I even thought I might have a beer or two with him at an annual APA conference some year, but then he was never able to attend that event.) Donna Luchetta used to tell people I was a valuable member of her treatment team. (I was shocked, but complemented in an odd way.) I could even call a couple current and past EMHC administrators friends, or potential friends. (I hesitate to name them, because they might get in trouble or be discriminated against for tolerating me!)

Bobby and Stoyki are also much more prone to lie and get caught lying than regular IDHS clinicians. Gus was restricted from viewing a couple movies this past month. The ROR he received included a credible (at least on the surface) reason for the restriction. However it also stated that this had been a clinical decision by the treatment team. It seemed highly unlikely to me that the whole treatment team had conferred about these two movies in time to restrict Gus, or even that they should have bothered to do so. 

I started asking questions about that in the staffing. I asked Bobby if he had actually known the titles of the movies or the content prior to the ROR being issued. He responded, "Yes, it was a treatment team decision." Well, that's an obvious evasion and dodge to a different issue... Maybe it was supposed to be a treatment team decision, maybe after the fact of the ROR, the whole treatment team agreed with the decision. But I just didn't believe that Bobby was in on any discussion of the issues before the ROR was signed. I mean after all, he's only on the unit a couple days a week anyway.)

So I kept trying to clarify. "Dr. Sharpe, did you actually review the specific movies, or know the titles or contents of them and the rationale for a restriction in this case, before the ROR was issued?" He could have answered no, and I wouldn't have thought twice! His answer was, "It was a treatment team decision." 

OK, I get it. He was trying not to lie, but he was afraid to answer my question honestly for some reason. I just hate it when people think I won't notice that they are refusing to answer my question! I don't like people who think I'm stupid. Why didn't Bobby just answer, "I heard about it the next day, but I agreed with the ROR and signed off on it"-? 

So I kept bugging him, until he had to interrupt and talk over everyone several times, and act really assertive and strong and disciplinary, and Stoyki was piling on, too... until we all finally said the conversation could "move on". Which meant Gus and I had no right to clarify who had actually decided to take his property away. Bobby had some clinical prerogative to lie or dissimilate as much as he wanted, because he's the master and we're the slaves, that's what it's about. I think Rachel probably decided on her own to take Gus' movies, and she later got the "team" to agree, and Bobby imagined that he was protecting Rachel from me in some weird way by not admitting it. So what? Maybe all these people are delusional.

Rachel Nelson might only be as obnoxiously childish as she has been in Gus' recent staffings because "Love Unit" K is just a uniquely treacherous place to work. I don't know what troubles Rachel worries about, or what terrors keep her awake at night, and I probably shouldn't be offended by her. Who knows? Maybe she's only months away from retirement with full pension, and scared to death it will all be ruined if something is discovered about her, like... failures or intentional refusals to report suspicions of abuse under OIG Rule 51? Bobby and Stoyki were the real liars and idiots in this case, Rachel was just a loyal but worried second lieutenant with little or no authority.

I will have some suggestions for the next Love Unit K staffing for Gus. It should be possible to do this in a business-like way, without people embarrassing themselves and desperately needing respect as professionals. I conferred with a close friend, a long-time business executive, on how to organize meetings which everyone knows have some chance of becoming very acrimonious. He understood the situation from many years of experience in corporate board rooms and negotiations, and he had some practical perspective when I described Gus' disastrous staffing today.

(More to follow.)