Bullying People living with Mental Health Disabilities
March 29, 2016
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Episode Description
Dr. Gordon Atherley, docg@familycaregiversunite.org, holds the British equivalents of the North American MD and PhD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa. He highlights his own experience of bullying within a Canadian organization focused on mental illness. The bullying caused harm and loss to many people who were associated with the organization, who depended on it, or who trusted it. He believes that the bullying reflected Narcissistic personality disorder, as defined by various expert organizations. He analyzes his own experience of being bullied by a healthcare professional and says why he advocates for high-quality research. He details challenges created for family caregivers and their family members, and the supports that they need. He says what more he’d like to do and see done, and by whom, to promote prevention of bullying by healthcare professionals and support for people who are bullied. He shares his message for people who have been bullied by healthcare professionals.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
Episode Directory
April 2016
March 2016
- 3/29/2016: Bullying People living with Mental Health Disabilities Listen Now
- 3/22/2016: A Family Experience of being Bullied Listen Now
- 3/15/2016: Bullying of People living with Mental Health Challenges Listen Now
- 3/8/2016: Divorce when Children live with Disabilities Listen Now
- 3/1/2016: Gene Editing for Individuals and their Families and Family Caregivers Listen Now
