Applied Psychology Part 2

Self Deception

Self deception can be a difficult topic for many, because it requires taking an honest and clear look in the mirror. With practice however, self reflection is the start of coming to peace with oneself, everything you did right, everything you did wrong, and everything where you just don’t know one way or the other. I am fortunate more than most, that my work as an Emergency Room physician forced me to become comfortable with uncertainty, even in life or death situations. This comfort with the unknown was my first step into being objective, especially with myself. Every shift I worked trained me to be patient, carefully examine results and retain a critical honesty about my limitations. Imperfections define our human existence. This is why one focus I have on this substack is mistakes - particularly those which I am most qualified to speak of, that being my own.

Mistakes and how they happen are a particular interest of mine, because some time after I lost my job as an Emergency doctor in 2021, I realized that Emergency Medicine was the specialty of medical mistakes, particularly life threatening ones. Every serious medication error, unexpected interaction, every specialist’s miscalculation with life threatening consequences, ends up in the Emergency Department. Mistake medicine is the specialty of emergency medicine, (which also includes the mistakes of other emergency doctors, general practitioners as well as specialists).

While it is not politically correct to say this out loud, especially in the hospital culture of big egos and specialty worship, now that it looks like I am permanently unlicensable¹, I can say all the things specialists and hospital admin don’t want you to know about the hospital “social order”.

One of the most delicate parts of emergency medicine is knowing every other specialty’s standard of care. This is the bare minimum that each specialty is expected to do for a patient. Knowing what constitutes the standard of care, and why each specialty is expected to perform certain basics of evaluation and treatment can make the difference between life and death, as in whether or not the specialty accepts the patient from the emergency department. Sometimes this means that being an ER doctor requires that you be the specialist of all specialties (but without the pay or respect).

When a specialist tries to “turf” a patient to another specialty, or deny the need to care of a particular ER patient, the ER doctor needs to tactfully and delicately pressure the specialist to see the patient, sometimes by begging for a “favor”. The obsequiousness has to be tactfully done, sometimes under the pretense that you “don’t know” what all the test and imaging results mean, but that surely the patient could only be “safely” managed by that specialty. Yes, an emergency doctor’s job sometimes involves acting the fool and playing the fool(s). (e.g. the consultants who need to be plied with flattery and feigned ignorance before they agree to see the ER patient “as a favor”.) As a warning to any young and capable ER doctors reading this, DO NOT try to pull off the following: “I know the standard of care for your specialty — cardiology, radiology, psychiatry etc, therefore you must to come to see the patient…”. The specialist will most certainly carry a grudge, and you’d be surprised at how many years of backstabbing can result from just 1 slightly deflated ego.

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Self deception - the mistake found everywhere, not just in the ER.

What follows, despite the Emergency Room introduction, is far removed from the Emergency Department. It’s an experience that I share with you from my new life outside hospital walls. Though the experience that has little to do with the ER at first glance, my decades in the ER still shape the way I reflect upon it, and how look at how my error led to an unfortunate outcome.

The following deals with the mistake of self deception in the most holistic sense, something that can happen each of us every day. While I was in Manila, a dear friend’s inlaws had heard of me as one of the brave doctors who stood up against government. They wanted to meet me for dinner, and I agreed to make the time to spend with them. We were to meet at one of the malls in Manila, 1/2 way between the airport where I was staying and northern Manila where they lived.

(Manila, as I learned during my stay, has an extremely unpredictable public transport system, so as a suggestion to anyone visiting, schedule at least 3 times the amount of time you’d expect to need if you want to get to your destination.) My friend’s inlaws and I decided to meet at a Philippine restaurant so I could experience the local cuisine. Knowing that my schedule was tight, my friend’s cousin in law suggested that I go ahead and order since I was already at the restaurant. I ordered a family dinner for 6, expecting they’d arrive soon. However, over the next few text messages it became clear they’d be late, but I was told not to worry because one her kids would arrive at the restaurant soon, as she was closer to Monumento station. Without a photo, I was told to keep a look out for her at the restaurant.

Unlike the public transportation, the Philippine restaurant in the mall was exceptionally efficient. Not even 15 minutes had passed before my dinner for 6 was ready, and the staff were waving at me to come pick up the dinner from the service counter. They motioned to me that I was to take the food to the table for 6 that they had reserved for me in the center of the restaurant.

So I set out food, plates, cutlery and drinks for 6 and waited. Under the curious eyes of the restaurant staff, I sat in the middle of the busy restaurant with a very large dinner in front of me, conspicuously not eating. A half hour of watching people in line for a free table, while sitting alone a table for 6 not eating, was all I could take. I finally started eating slowly. Here I was, 1 person, taking up a huge table, slow eating while people were waiting to sit. I thought to myself, “Was I now the inconsiderate Asian tourist making who makes tourists look bad?” I don’t know. But the food was so good that about 10 minutes into the slowest meal you can imagine, I briefly forgot about keeping an eye out for the daughter of my friend’s inlaws. No sooner had I lost myself in the food, when suddenly a girl wearing a black facemask approached my table making motions with her hands towards her mouth, gesturing for food.

I immediately thought, “Finally! My dinner guest!”. I motioned for her to sit and asked if she was #######’s daughter. But instead of speaking, she just repeated the gesture of her hand to her mouth. I motioned for her to sit again, and repeated my question in case she didn’t speak English well. She looked nervous, and instead of sitting, she quickly walked around to the other side of the table, making the same gesture again with her hand to her mouth. Again I motioned for her to sit, this time more emphatically, confused at why she wasn’t taking a seat. Was she not the person I was waiting for? Was there a mixup? Though her face was partly hidden behind a facemask, she looked a little too young to be traveling alone even in a relatively safe area of Manila inside a modern mall. However, before I could figure out who she was, the restaurant staff caught on to why she was there.

The staff, who were already watching me, the strange tourist who ordered a dinner for 6, only to eat slowly by himself at the center of the restaurant, realized that the child was there begging for food. They quickly surrounded the child and ushered her out of the restaurant. They didn’t catch on when she first walked in because she was in decent and clean clothes. Had she approached any table but mine, she might have got something to eat from locals who would have known exactly why she was there. But because she approached my table, with the lonely looking tourist, she fell under the suspicious gaze of the restaurant staff. That combined with my own misunderstanding trying to get her to sit as one of my dinner guests, resulted in her leaving empty handed.

To summarize the outcome:

1. a child left hungry

2. I sat unhappy at not having given her food before she was thrown out.

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Where was my mistake?

It was because I was expecting company, specifically the company of someone I had never met or seen, that I thought anyone who approached my table would be one of the guests I was meant to dine with. The prejudice — that is my pre-judgment that anyone coming up to my table was expecting to sit down for dinner — caused me to mis-judge the situation. Even though I did 6 months of volunteer work with street kids in the favelas of Brazil prior to medical school, leaving me more able than most to recognize a street kid who is pretending not to be one; my prejudice was so strong that I failed to recognize that the child approaching my table asking for food, was simply that - a child asking for food.

By the time I realized who she was, it was too late. She was taken away from the restaurant and probably thrown out of the mall as well. It took me a while to figure out why the incident bothered me so much that day, and even now, much later. What I’ve discovered thus far, is that I hate to see courage go unrewarded, especially in a child. Her eyes, the nervousness, and hesitation to sit, weigh on my mind. I can barely fathom how much courage it took for that young child to walk into a mall where she’s not wanted, walk into a restaurant where she knew she’d be thrown out, approach the table of a stranger, and then ask for food.

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Why does her courage which went unrewarded weigh so much upon me? Perhaps it is because of my own journey after saving 3 patients with ivermectin, and all the losses I’ve endured since then. Or maybe it is because despite all the avarice, inflated egos and arrogance I’ve seen behind the scenes from “leadership” in Canada’s freedom movement, the one and only fatal flaw is cowardice. Idiocy, self delusion, and pride can all be overcome. But without courage, everything else fails. Thus far I have seen far too much cowardice behind the scenes of Canada’s freedom movement to be optimistic. The unfortunate manifestation of this cowardice is self deception.. The stubbornness and anger I get from people, when I point out their misplaced faiths or reveal obvious deceptions directed at the freedom movement, deceptions that are so plain that even a preteen would catch on, surprises even me at times.

Whether it is a conservative party leader who panders to the freedom movement only to marginalize demonstrators to a back parking lot, where security could ensure our message did not catch the public eye, or a lawyer who claims to be fighting for freedom without putting forth a single human rights argument², what I’ve learned time and again is that some people place an incredible emotional investment in false leaders. In many cases, the emotional motivation to defend their idols extends to the point of complete blindness to any evidence they are being misled.

From such followers, attacks seem to always be directed at any messenger who questions the discrepancies between the “charismatic” leader’s words and actions. Vehement emotional resistance blocks the “supporter” or “follower” from even considering the possibility that they’ve been deceived. It seems that once faith has been put in a particular idol as the “savior”, going back to reflect on the decision becomes impossible. Even when that ‘leader’ brings harm to the movement they claim to support, trapped minds would rather blind themselves and attack the source of rational question, than reexamine the “belief”. I see this cognitive dissonance often in people who have put their faith in Canadian lawyers.

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Let’s figure out why the messenger gets shot (Or maybe just “attacked”).

Why is “shooting the messenger” a recurring message in western culture? On its surface, it doesn’t make any sense. Until I considered the possibility that shooting the messenger is actually a survival mechanism, the reason for this saying eluded me. To explain the process simply, we have to go through the following steps.

First:

Survival from Who?

Having observed for years, the nature of “leadership” in hospitals, and also within the freedom movement, it seems to me that more often than not sociopaths and psychopaths seem to rise to positions of power. The genuine and benevolent leader is rare. For example, one recent psychopathic act from a “freedom thought leader” was to try and guilt his “Followers” into taking the dangerous mRNA vaccine for the sake of “ending the lockdowns”. I describe the incident here:

Applied Psychology Part 1

Particularly diabolical is how Jordan Peterson turns blame away from politicians for implementing lockdowns, onto the Unvaccinated!

With a sociopathic leadership, the greatest fear a follower might have may be demotion or cancellation from the organization. However, with a psychopath leader, staying in “good graces” can be a matter of life or death.

How often do sociopaths or psychopaths game their way into leadership positions? Read the following and be your own judge.

Next:

Who is doing the shooting?

If the sociopath or psychopath leader isn’t shooting the messenger himself, historically it is one of the followers.

However, I qualify it by saying it is more than just any “Follower”. The attacker, most specifically, is a cowardly one. The “Followers” who carry the most fear, both rational and irrational, tend to be the ones who attack the message, particularly when the message is inconveniently true.

• But how does shooting the messenger enable cowardly “followers” to stay alive?

If a leader is sociopathic or psychopathic, every “follower” fears retribution. A “Follower” has no reason to fear the messenger or the good leader. Messengers are usually unarmed and a fair leader would never do injustice. But given how well intelligent sociopaths and psychopaths can disguise themselves as “Good people”, followers may have a hard time deciding if they should fear or revere their leader. To err on the side of caution, always acting the part of “loyal follower” can be a matter of life or death, especially if the leader happens to be a psychopath. Even if the leader happens not to be a sociopath or psychopath, “acting” loyal is usually “beneficial” for upward mobility in personality based hierarchies. The interesting thing in my observations are that shows of “loyalty” aren’t always to a person. They can be to bureaucracies (Like Alberta Health Services), organizations (particularly political ones) and even to low level “managers”.

Either way, if the “messenger” is bearing bad news, nothing says “loyalty” more than attacking the messenger. It wins points both with sociopaths and psychopaths.

Why is shooting the messenger a survival mechanism for “Followers”, or “members” in an organization? In any group where people are periodically laid off, being favored as a loyalist can keep the follower from being on the “bottom rung”. Especially if the message is something that a psychopath leader wouldn’t like, shooting the messenger has little risk and much potential for reward inside the cutthroat environments favored by sociopaths and psychopaths.

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Unfortunately within leadership channels in Canada’s freedom movement, behind the scenes I’ve witnessed a surprising amount of attacks, cowardice and willfull blindness. Some of the deception, ignorance and arrogance are on par with the very people we are fighting against. While deception, ignorance, and even arrogance can be overcome, cowardice is the one fatal flaw that undoes everything. The entire fight for human rights against forced medical experimentation falls apart if no one has the courage to act on it. All the revelations of truth in the world are meaningless unless people have at the very least, courage to look in the mirror and examine their mistakes so as to not continue making them. Being honest with yourself is the only antidote to the foundation of all deceptions — self deception. If you are telling yourself that someone is good because they are the same “Faith” as you are, the same skin color, the same team (often political), and ignoring discrepancies in words vs actions, then you may be in a self deception trap.

When I look in the mirror of retrospect, 3 years ago I had high hopes that by showing courage, I would inspire thousands of other doctors to do the same. While a few have made brave stands like I have, years later, I’d have to say that my hopes of inspiring a meaningful change in my profession have failed. The reason is this. From the perspective of the cowardly follower, survival can be all about leaving it up to the next guy to fight the dangerous fight. Why put your own neck on the line when someone else is doing it already? In Canada, the freedom movement continues to fundraise for lawyers who won’t defend a person’s right to their own body unless they get PAID first. Stubbornly, perhaps even fearfully, “supporters” in the freedom movement refuse to consider that they are being deceived. They won’t even read for themselves what their own lawyers have written.

The fear and cowardice extends to political supporters who think that voting for the same party that implemented lockdowns and vaccine mandates will somehow lead to positive change, just because there’s a new “leader”. Many “freedom” political supporters in Alberta are blind to the fact that despite all of their Premier’s sympathetic rhetoric over the past 2 years, she has actually done nothing. In April, the federal government of Canada implemented a 23% increase to the Carbon tax, something that Danielle Smith’s “Alberta sovereignty pact” should have been able to stop, using the consequence of Canada’s largest oil producing province separating from Canada. However, pointing out the fact that the carbon tax hike was implemented smoothly without any actual United Conservative Party government resistance as proof that Danielle Smith’s “Alberta Sovereignty Pact” was nothing more than empty words, only results in denial. “Followers” are blind to how the Premier’s words were just a stall to prevent Albertans from taking real and meaningful action.

Try reminding the same United Conservative Party supporters that the recent death of a woman denied a lung transplant for not taking an experimental mRNA injection, proves that Premier Danielle Smith’s words were just as empty when she said “the Unvaccinated were the MOST discriminated against…”; the only response is denial and equally empty claims that “She (Danielle Smith) really is trying her best”. I could give more examples of “too cowardly to see clearly”, but it would be redundant.

My assessment of this generation of adults in is that we are a lost cause. Too arrogant, too trapped by money, and most important of all, too cowardly to overcome self deception. I can count on 1 hand the number of genuinely courageous freedom fighters in Canada. They are not the ones you hear about on “Freedom” news, or see on “you’ve got to watch this video” forwards. Despite everything I’ve done, courage — the antidote to cowardice — is something that I haven’t yet succeeded in spreading in this generation of adults. This is why it pains me to see courage go unrewarded in the next generation, one of whom I encountered when she was a hungry street child in Manila. If the next generation can’t be shown that courage wins, then the cowardice and self deception of today’s adults will continue. What will it take for adults to get real? I do not know.

1. I couldn’t get a Texas medical license because the Canadian health authorities I used to work for refuses to send the necessary documentation to confirm my employment history.

2. https://rumble.com/v1d15e7-nelson-freedom-rally.html