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John David Wood by Julie Wood
My son died by suicide in 2008, but really he was killed by two physicians. As I learned to my horror, physicians killing young people in the way my son was killed is fairly common, and the CPSO sees nothing wrong with it. |
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John David’s Story
John David (JD, or John to his friends) was
sweet, idealistic, funny and smart.
As a preschooler, he had a nanny from
Grenada.
She had a distinctive accent that he
mastered so well he could sometimes fool people on the phone, which he
loved to do.
As he got older he became a gifted
impersonator.
JD
loved magic.
When he was three he went to a
birthday party where there was a clown who did magic tricks.
From that day he was fascinated with
magic and his favourite treat for years was to go to the magic store
with his Dad and get apparatus for a new illusion.
JD was incapable of pettiness or jealousy.
From the day his brother was born, JD
loved him unreservedly and always defended him.
The love of JD’s life was theatre.
Whenever he got the chance, he took
courses at Young People’s Theatre.
When he was 9, he came home and said
he was going to audition for the role of the young Duke of York at
Canadian Stage production of Richard 03.
Amazingly, although he had no
experience, he auditioned and got the role.
Stage fright was a foreign concept to
this kid.
He was totally happy and comfortable
in front of 600 people.
As he grew he became a gifted actor and director in high school and
university.
John David loved life.
He was extremely sensitive; as a young
adult he was a high-strung, anxious perfectionist.
When he was 16 he went to see Dr Ian
Graham, a psychiatrist who told JD that he had ADHD and gave him
stimulants for his alleged condition.
JD took high doses of these drugs
non-stop between mid-2000 and June, 2004.
He had no medical need for Ritalin,
Adderall or Dexedrine, the stimulants that Dr Graham prescribed for him.
Dr Graham never warned JD about the
side effects or told him that the drugs are not suitable for long-term
use.
He also did not warn JD that these
drugs are highly addictive, or that they negatively affect brain
development.
In late summer 2004, JD was preparing to
enter his 4th
year at University of Toronto, Trinity College,
he
was working toward directing Othello
at Hart House for the fall season.
He decided to quit taking stimulants
and told Dr Graham that this was his plan.
Dr Graham did now warn him to wean
himself off gradually to avoid serious withdrawal effects.
On Sept 8, JD quit the drug “cold turkey” and
soon started to have serious problems.
On Sept 17, he had a psychotic break
and attempted suicide by slashing his throat.
He was taken to North York General
Hospital (NYG) by the police on an involuntary admission.
His father and I rushed to the
hospital when we found out but we were not permitted to see or talk to
him.
NYG totally failed to discover that JD’s
psychotic episode was a drug withdrawal reaction.
This was at least partly because when
they called Dr Graham, at my request, Dr Graham lied and said he had not
seen JD for months.
They recommended an antipsychotic
drug, Risperdal.
At the time I did not realize that
this class of drug is extremely damaging, and actually causes the
problems that people attribute to “schizoaffective disorders” when taken
long term.
He then went to a different psychiatrist
because it was assumed that he had some serious psychiatric problem.
So, instead of getting off drugs,
which was what he needed, he was loaded up with tons of damaging
medications (Risperdal, Ativan, Celexa and Imovane).
These drugs created terrible problems
for him – he gained 70 lbs., lost most of his cognitive functioning, was
seriously suicidal, unmotivated and he developed a craving for alcohol.
His new psychiatrist, Dr David
Dorenbaum, was totally oblivious to the obvious fact that all these
problems and others were directly related to drugs.
Many psychiatrists attribute all patient
problems to inherent conditions and then prescribe drugs to people who
are suffering from drug side effects.
This is what Dr Dorenbaum did to John
David.
Dr Graham kept on prescribing the stimulants
to him, although he should have known that they were the cause of JD’s
problems.
In the fall of 2005, I confronted Dr
Graham and argued with him about this, and threatened him that if he did
not stop prescribing the drugs or at least get a second opinion, I would
complain to the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSO).
I did not realize back then that the
CPSO protects incompetent psychiatrists and will go to great lengths to
blame their many victims for the problems these physicians cause,
usually with drugs that do far more harm than good.
JD managed to get off the drugs for over a
year and improved dramatically.
Sadly, like many addicts, he went back
to his stimulants in 2008, prescribed by Dr Dorenbaum, which immediately
started a downward spiral of drinking.
In the fall he entered a CAMH drug
rehab program and did well, but by this time so much emotional and
physical damage had been done that he was very fragile emotionally.
He killed himself shortly after
leaving rehab, just when we had begun to believe the worst was over.
I complained to the CPSO about both Dr.
Graham and Dr. Dorenbaum.
Shortly after I filed my complaint, I
learned that a pharmacist had complained about Dr Graham and that the
College had taken away his right to prescribe in 2007.
However, despite the fact that he had
lost his right to prescribe for grossly mis-prescribing to 15 people,
the panel of psychiatrists on the Inquiries, Complaint and Reports
Committee (ICRC)
-
Lynne Thurling, MD,
Rayudu Koka, MD, Dody Bienenstock, MD
and Mr. David Mackinnon -
decided
to aggressively defend Dr Graham by asserting that while he had made
mistakes with John David, these mistakes did not make any difference.
They did this by allowing Dr Graham to
retroactively invent information to add to the diagnoses he actually
made at the time, and by helpfully reading in all kinds of invented
nonsense to assist his case.
They decided that the case was not about Dr
Graham CAUSING psychosis, but merely “unmasking” psychosis which had
probably been there all along even though there was no evidence of this.
Dr
Graham never mentioned anything about it, and JD was a happy and
successful student during the time that the ICRC decided to
retroactively claim he must have been mentally ill.
There is no overlap between objective
fact-based truth, and the version of reality promulgated by the ICRC
psychiatrists.
In the file, highlighted by me, was a clear
statement by Dr Joel Jeffries (who had done the CPSO investigation of Dr
Graham) that there was no evidence that JD had schizophrenia.
The ICRC decided to ignore this and
rely on their own made-up information instead.
Not one of them had ever met my son.
Instead of disciplining Dr Graham for
prescribing drugs that were not needed, for failing to warn my son about
the addictive properties of prescription speed and the dangers of sudden
withdrawal, and for causing an addiction that directly led to his death,
the ICRC asked Dr Graham to write a little essay about treating people
with ADHD and schizophrenia, thus adding insult to injury.
This was their way of giving me the
proverbial raised middle finger for daring to criticize one of them.
In similar fashion, although Dr Dorenbaum had
drugged my son almost to death, the ICRC blithely dismissed my claim
that he caused brain damage by saying they did not believe it.
They allowed Dr Dorenbaum to re-create
his illegible notes after I complained, and although this is misconduct
under O Reg. 114/94 General under the Medicine Act, the CPSO never
bothers to enforce the requirement that proper records be kept.
The ICRC decided that it was just fine for Dr
Dorenbaum to have taken a young man who started out traumatized by his
psychotic reaction to speed withdrawal, but who was otherwise fine, and
drug him almost to death while family frequently and frantically
complained.
To them, destroying young people with
drugs is what they do, and the CPSO has allowed them to defend their
territory at the expense of families and the public interest.
My son died as a result of the drugs
- none of which he needed – given to
him by these two doctors but the ICRC just pretended that was not the
case.
They can do this because the CPSO
allows it.
These outrageous people must be stopped.
The public at large expects a
professional regulatory body to ensure that practitioners operate
according to standards that most people would find reasonable.
That is not happening at the CPSO.
Ontario needs effective oversight of
all physicians and that is obviously not happening.
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