A few months ago I told you about an addiction psychiatrist from Naples, Florida who is a bully. Well — he is still bullying. I heard from him again today.
At that time I shared with you a story about a comment that had been made about him by someone who had read my blog. Nothing I had said, rather, commentary by someone else about how she felt she had been sexually harrassed, stalked and mistreated.
I told you how, behind my back, he had pulled my Wordpress blog offline and had contacted my About.com colleagues to ask them to make me pull THIS blog offline — but he had never even contacted me! He never asked me if I would remove the comment, which — if I had known there was a problem — I would have. The comment was a he-said, she-said type of thing. I don’t know either of the parties. I would have pulled the post. All he needed to do was send me an email to request it — and as you can see — my email address is front and center on every page of this blog. I’m a reasonable person. No excuses for his bullying tactics.
In frustration, this Naples psychiatrist finally sent me an email DEMANDING I remove the comment. Aha! He did find my email address! He cited all kinds of federal laws and trademark infringements he thought I was violating. At that point, I replied to him, and told him I don’t respond well to bully tactics. He had found my email address just fine at that point — so why didn’t he contact me before contacting my colleagues?
And then, I asked him for an apology. I just wanted him to take responsibility for all his bullying. With an apology, I would removed the post and that would be the end.
The apology was never forthcoming. Nope. Instead he threatened me some more — so I published my first post which you can find here.
You can imagine then how I felt about another email arriving from the bully psychiatrist today. Here’s an excerpt — copied and pasted — the typos are his:
Subject: YOU ARE BEING SUE
PLEASE BE ADVISED IF THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS NOT REMOVED WITHING 3 WORKING
DAYS, I WILL ADVISED MY ATTORNEY TO INCLUDE YOUR WEB COMPANY AND
AFFILIATES IN A LIBEL SUIT FOR $1,000,000 DOLLARS FOR DAMAGE AND EMOTIONAL
HARM. YOU CONTINUE HAVE METAGS THAT APPEAR AS FOLLOWS IN GOOGLES AND OTHER
SEARCH ENGINES
Hmmm…. so the question is…. what happened to all those cyberstalking laws he cited in his first contact with me? Now — who is stalking whom? All I asked for was an apology from the bully. He can’t handle an apology — so now he’s stalking me. Never mind that I live more than 1,000 miles away.
But — what he doesn’t know is that I spend quite a bit of time in South Florida — not far from Naples, Ft. Meyers, Marco Island… I have family there and I’m there several times a year. In fact, I’ll be there within the next few weeks, so while I’m there, I plan to make a trip up to the Naples police department to see what kinds of restraining orders or other paperwork there may be on him. If he contacts me again, I’ll add a restraining order to their records.
I will not be bullied.
And what does it mean to you, the reader of this blog? Patients need to be able to protect themselves from dangerous doctors, whether those doctors are addicted to alcohol or other substances, bad surgeons, guilty of making mistakes with their patients — or even bullies.
Here is a good way to do it:
Sometimes all it requires is a general google search to get the information you need. If you know the doctor’s name, then search on that first, plus the word “blog” or the word “problem” or even “malpractice.” You may need to use your location, too, because there may be more than one doctor who has the same name.
Even if you don’t know his or her name, Just input your location, the type of doctor you seek (family practice, orthopedist, whatever) — and then those words: blog, malpractice, problem, even “error” or “mistake.”
Be sure to look down through five or six pages of google results — and you have a better chance of finding the information you need. Even if there haven’t been lawsuits, you can get general impressions of a doctor if someone has had a very good or very bad experience and chose to share that information online.
Bullying is never acceptable. I’m still waiting for that apology. I refuse to respond to bullying tactics.
I hope you will follow my lead.
