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More and more armchair quarterbacks are trying to figure why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down 13 people and wounded another 30 at the Fort Hood Army Post in Texas. These type of analyses happen with any mass killing spree. The difference here is that Hasan was a psychiatrist. The issue that I am having with their so-called conclusions is that they are calling it "compassion fatigue". You have got to be kidding me! First of all, you have to prove to me that Dr. Hasan had any compassion in the first place. Second of all, doctors are not like postal workers. They don't go "postal" or "medical", if you will. They don't go on killing sprees! Here is a better article on compassion fatigue in Family Practice Management from 2000. Their definition is quite good:
Compassion fatigue is a deep physical, emotional and spiritual exhaustion accompanied by acute emotional pain. Whereas physicians with burnout adapt to their exhaustion by becoming less empathetic and more withdrawn, compassion-fatigued physicians continue to give themselves fully to their patients, finding it difficult to maintain a healthy balance of empathy and objectivity. Those who have experienced compassion fatigue describe it as being sucked into a vortex that pulls them slowly downward. They have no idea how to stop the downward spiral, so they do what they've done since medical school: They work harder and continue to give to others until they're completely tapped out.
Show me where Dr. Hasan kept giving himself to his patients more and more. Show me how he worked harder and harder with more and more compassion. For the families of the people killed at Fort Hood, please do not give this guy the benefit of being called compassionate. It is disrespectful. He did what he did because he was isolated, he no longer wanted to be in the military, he did not like who we were at war with, and no one would grant him his wishes to get out. Add to this the fact that he was a covert and warped religious zealot and you have the horrific results in Texas.
Doctors with compassion fatigue kill themselves. It is a terrible but sad truth. They don't, however, kill others. Dr. Hasan was a coward and the word compassion should NEVER be associated with his name.
10 comments:
I AGREE WITH YOUR COMMENTS. THE ARMY FAILED TO RESPOND TO THE POOR EVALUATIONS AND COMMENTS OF ASSOCIATES THAT THE MAJOR WAS EXHIBITING "RADICALIZATION" BELIEFS.
I agree.
I've got compassion fatigue, and believe me, he ain't got the same thing.
What I think DID happen here, though, was best described by Joseph Heller many years ago,
to wit:
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle." -- Joseph Heller, "Catch 22"
So, here we have a clearly crazy psychiatrist, listening to foreign radical imams who are telling him to "kill," like a schizophrenic's "voices." He doesn't want to go into a combat zone, doesn't want to be part of a force that is fighting "his people," doesn't want to be patching up psychiatric basket cases so they can go back to fight.
He asks, petitions, pleads, hires a lawyer to try to get out of the Army.
He offers to pay back the cost of his education.
But, even though he's clearly a loose cannon, he can't get out.
Why?
Because anyone with any sense would want to get out of going over to Iraq, in fact WANTING to go over would probably get you thrown out of the service as a nut job, so, since he's trying to get out, he's obviously sane, and can't possibly be discharged, since he's not crazy.
Catch 22.
There were dozens of Nazi doctors known to have done things, shall we say, incompatible with the Hippocratic Oath. To put it mildly. Josef Mengele, Karl Gebhardt, Karl Brandt, Viktor Brack, I could go on. Google "Nazi Physicians" or "Doctors Trial"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_Trial
Could you imagine any one using the WW-2 equivalent of "PTSD" (shell shock, battle fatigue, or similar), or "compassion fatigue" as a defense at Nuremburg?
"Could you imagine any one using the WW-2 equivalent of "PTSD" (shell shock, battle fatigue, or similar), or "compassion fatigue" as a defense at Nuremburg?"
Imagine it?
Robert Jay Lifton wrote a book about it -
"The Nazi Doctors," 1978.
He discusses their PTSD in clear detail, though not with modern terminology.
A good though long read.
"Could you imagine any one using the WW-2 equivalent of "PTSD" (shell shock, battle fatigue, or similar), or "compassion fatigue" as a defense at Nuremburg?"
Imagine it?
Robert Jay Lifton wrote a book about it -
"The Nazi Doctors," 1978.
He discusses their PTSD in clear detail, though not with modern terminology.
A good though long read.
>>Imagine it? Robert Jay Lifton wrote a book about it - "The Nazi Doctors," 1978.
I'd not heard of that book. I have read some of Proctor's books on Nazi medicine, "Nazi War on Cancer", as one example. I found the book you mentioned available online here:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/contents.shtml
I haven't found where the Nazi doctors used PTSD as a defense. Just started looking, though. Are you saying that some of the Nazi docs used PTSD as a defense when brought to war crimes trial?
The media disgusts me. Calling a twisted murder's act the result of compassion fatigue insults all those who struggle with making it through the day because they are so burned out.
You are sooooo right. People with compassion fatigue kill themselves, or get severe depression, or just drop dead. They don't buy a gun, loads of ammo, and then shoot innocent people.
I'm an Air Force physician. 2 weeks ago one of the other AF docs in my building committed suicide. Everyone kept asking why - and the answer is compassion fatigue, I have no doubt. I saw myself on that road and have made changes to my life as a result. We need to learn how to take care of ourselves. But to put that twisted ball of hate in the same category as my colleague is unacceptable.
Robert Jay Lifton wrote a book about it -
"The Nazi Doctors," 1978.
I bought it recently thru Amazon.com. Good read
To Anonymous -
"I haven't found where the Nazi doctors used PTSD as a defense. Just started looking, though. Are you saying that some of the Nazi docs used PTSD as a defense when brought to war crimes trial?"
Nope, they didn't use it as a defense, but Lifton clearly describes now-recognized processes of PTSD (which he calls, "doubling."), and how they were an integral part of these doctors' survival and continued function in the situations in which none of them had ever expected to find themselves.
To the other Anonymous -
I'm very sorry to hear about your colleague.
It sounds bad, but it's better for any of us to burn out and close up shop emotionally than to keep caring until we kill ourselves. It's okay to become an SOB if it's the only choice you've got left.
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