Eponastill
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2002
- Messages
- 1,122
- Location
- generally on the fringes
They were talking about this on the PM programme (Radio 4) this evening. It's about 27 to 32 minutes in:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00017r2
or you can read about the case here for example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ew-foreign-doctors-commonwealth-a8640981.html
She had done a year of medical training in NZ but then come to Britain and got a job claiming to be a doctor. And only got caught out because they were investigating her for fraud (involving someone's will) 22 years later.
The newspaper article doesn't reflect it, but I thought they captured quite a fortean slant in the radio interview, because the interviewer asks whether some professions are easier to get away with. (He mentioned that surely a surgeon or a welder would soon be exposed). Partly his point was that because lots of what goes on in psychiatry is between the doctor and the patient, that no-one else might notice. But the guy being interviewed wasn't really having this, he put forward that most people who want a kick out of faking stuff would rather be in a 'glamorous' job like a surgeon. So then the interviewer raised the idea that wine experts that can't always tell the difference between a super expensive wine and a cheaper one... because (unspoken) that there isn't an objective difference because some of the matter is - I don't know... culture? or bunk?? - that psychiatry (at least perhaps the counselling side of things, rather than the prescribing medical side - I inferred that's what he meant) has elements of Emperor's New Clothes?
I thought it was an interesting angle to take. You may think 'ah that's not fortean' but I thought he was trying to expose a fuzziness of psychiatry, an inconvenient interpretation of the situation. Or as Mr Fort would put it, that "I conceive of nothing in religion, science or philosophy that is more than the proper thing to wear for a while".
[clarification: I don't know anything about psychiatry]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00017r2
or you can read about the case here for example https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ew-foreign-doctors-commonwealth-a8640981.html
She had done a year of medical training in NZ but then come to Britain and got a job claiming to be a doctor. And only got caught out because they were investigating her for fraud (involving someone's will) 22 years later.
The newspaper article doesn't reflect it, but I thought they captured quite a fortean slant in the radio interview, because the interviewer asks whether some professions are easier to get away with. (He mentioned that surely a surgeon or a welder would soon be exposed). Partly his point was that because lots of what goes on in psychiatry is between the doctor and the patient, that no-one else might notice. But the guy being interviewed wasn't really having this, he put forward that most people who want a kick out of faking stuff would rather be in a 'glamorous' job like a surgeon. So then the interviewer raised the idea that wine experts that can't always tell the difference between a super expensive wine and a cheaper one... because (unspoken) that there isn't an objective difference because some of the matter is - I don't know... culture? or bunk?? - that psychiatry (at least perhaps the counselling side of things, rather than the prescribing medical side - I inferred that's what he meant) has elements of Emperor's New Clothes?
I thought it was an interesting angle to take. You may think 'ah that's not fortean' but I thought he was trying to expose a fuzziness of psychiatry, an inconvenient interpretation of the situation. Or as Mr Fort would put it, that "I conceive of nothing in religion, science or philosophy that is more than the proper thing to wear for a while".
[clarification: I don't know anything about psychiatry]