On Foreign Trained Doctors and Patient Abuse at the Arizona State Hospital:
        In the 13 months that I was a patient as the Arizona State Hospital, I was subjected to the substandard care and treatment of three different primary physicians. It was a freaking joke, no continuity of care at all, despite that being one of central features of any long term in-patient treatment facility; and to the best of my reckoning, by way of my very real experiences, this came about because I was willing to report the wrongdoing of first the one, than the other, and so on, of these bottom feeding so called practitioners of  psychiatric health care. I didn't simply complain, mind you, I reported the sons' a bitches to the applicable in-hospital authorities and so on, but instead of meaningfully addressing the issues that I- the patient-reported, Hospital administration 
shuffled me around like so much unwanted furniture.
       That is precisely how it felt to have my doctors passing me off between another simply because I was willing to do the right thing, and as a person foundering in the task of seeking reasons to live, I was constantly compelled to consider whether in these people's minds, my life was worth anything at all. I personally spent countless hours considering whether or not to fling myself off of an accessible roof top at ASH, and my distrust of the majority of the staff kept me from sharing these feelings with staff. I can attest to the act that the suicidal personality enters hospital settings such as ASH seeking, at best, treatment oriented towards improving one's general outlook about living versus dying; this is central to the literature on suicidal thinking, and even as I was doing my own research into the topic of my condition and learning about such things, I was experiencing absolutely dehumanizing attitudes and behaviors on the part of the one's I was supposed to be able to most rely upon. No surprise that in places like ASH, that people wind up taking there lives while in the hospital. I made this kind of shit clear to everybody, from my therapists to the chief medical officer at the time, Dr. Steven Dingle, all to no avail.
      I have already talked about the fact that Dingle and Ahkter were 100% behind the messed up abuse of the legal system in relation to the events of late May, 2011, as well the related action of unlawfully transferring me as a matter of clear retaliation from the relatively peaceful unit that my very well intentioned Tucson doctor had arranged for me to be treated on to the most violent unit at ASH. But as though that isn't bad enough, I also found myself dealing with these doctors, one right after the other, who were utterly unable or unwilling to understand the basis for my simple discontent in terms of patient abuse; and Dingle, meanwhile, sort of nefariously maintained his clinical authority over my doctors while simultaneously refusing to appear in the flesh anytime he was needed. In time it became undeniably apparent that the entire ASH operation is simply unable to manage it own affairs in accordance with established law and practice.
      Initially, I did not why or where to assign the causation for this, but in time, I came to see that it was deeper than simple ineptitude, and eventually, it sunk in that all three of the psychiatrists that primarily treated me at the Arizona State Hospital were literally alien to the sorts of ideals and expectations that I take for granted. And while I am not racist, being of American Indian and Irish-German blood, and generally far from one to discriminate against the God given intelligence of foreigners (or whatever), I know for a fact that cultural values are a pretty big deal in contemporary understandings of  medical practice in the United States today, and this is certainly true for the field of psychiatry. Just not at ASH. Consequently, I ran into serious problems with my own basic flow of treatment, as well as in terms relating to my efforts to address the issue of patient abuse at ASH during my thirteen long months there, all on the basis of being subjected to the ethical practices of men and women seemingly out of touch with common decency and civic responsibility.
       In the case of the first doctor I worked closely with, for example, Dr. L. Patel, who earned his medical degree in at an unrated medical school in India, my willingness to report patient abuse at ASH was directly challenged on the grounds that it was both a fruitless cause and outside my role as a patient, in these exact words:
     " What do you think, that you can change the system? You need to ignore such things and focus on your treatment." (April, 2011)
        I was nothing short of flabbergasted by this statement! The rat bastard effectively acknowledged the presence of the issues I was reporting, and then told me to somehow accept in my own right that such abuse is acceptable. I was both insulted by this, as well as stupefied, and I told him as much, stating, in effect, that it's only right for individuals to speak out against abuse of others. It was a very bizarre moment in my life, having to explain myself to a grown man with a medical degree in relation to things I had learned in a fourth grade civics class. Because he was my primary attending doctor at the time, I relied on this man to respond in a dutiful manner to my good faith concerns about the welfare of patients but instead wound having to hearing that kind of asinine rhetoric.    
       Initially, I did not why or where to assign the causation for this sot of phenomena at the Arizona State Hospital, but in time, I came to see that it was deeper than simple ineptitude, and before long, Dr. Patel and I parted ways, too, because of his shortsightedness in relation to these sorts of things. It was clear that I made him uncomfortable. 
        The second second primary attending physician that I had assigned to me at ASH (after Patel) is named Dr. Pervaiz Ahkter, and he went to an unrated medical school in Pakistan, of all places. Ahkter proved himself to be a real ass as soon as I made his acquaintance, and far worse than Patel in terms of understanding fundamental American law and values; and as a doctor, Ahkter subjected me to a range of unlawful actions, which I am still fighting to address through the state legal system.
        My third, and final (whew!) primary attending physician at ASH (after Ahkter) is named Sylvia Dy, a native Philippino who attended an unrated medical school in Manila, and who was reassigned to the Arizona State Hospital in fall, 2011, after 17-18 years of working in the department of health services out patient network. And somehow, despite obviously having been working as a psychiatrist in the  United States for at least two decades, this woman couldn't even put a simple sentence together in standard english, neither verbally nor in writing. Again, I loathe the idea of taking stabs at people for not being native to this nation or not fluent in the english language, but as I have stated, in terms of mental health care, the doctor-patient relationship is founded on good communication, and it was nothing short of maddening (no pun intended) to try and communicate with this doctor, who always seemed to speak in the third person-past/present and was constantly  pluralizing singular elements of her speech and diction. But the most serious disconcerting thing was that she could not understand certain aspects of my treatment and discharge planning, and was so clearly incapable of carrying on intelligent conversation that she would lose patience and then hold it against me. I cannot imagine the damage that a doctor like her must have caused in the lives of myriad past patients assigned to her care.        
         Now, as I have stated, this woman who shut down my friend Audrey P.'s access to an electric wheel chair, Dr. Ramos-Rojax, got her medical training in the Philippines, also at an unrated medical school, and in the few times I had to deal with her, she expressed herself as one of the most unfriendly staff persons I ever interacted with at ASH, no personality whatsoever.  And even as I write, Audrey P. has to wile away her days at ASH in what I can only describe as fundamentally debased indignity because her Philippine trained doctor feels an electronic wheel chair is not fitting for a mentally ill person who has no interest in using prosthetics.
        In closing, I will state my avowed contention that the Arizona State Hospital is safe haven for doctors who couldn't make it out in the real world, just as the administrative and clinical practices of the ones in charge of ASH wouldn't fly for a millisecond in a private or commercial setting. The same can be said for any number of the nurses and technicians at ASH, the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of medical health professionals. But what would you expect in a place that has an infrastructure like that, an administration so corruptly selfish that it is impossible for a patient to meaningfully report even the most glaringly unlawful misconduct?
        My email address is paoloreed@gmail.com. Please get in touch with me if you have what it takes to fight the wrongdoing at the Arizona State Hospital. It has to start somewhere.