The medical ethics panel of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Wednesday recommended revoking the licenses of 89 psychiatrists nationwide on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining their qualifications.
Health Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki announced the disciplinary action at a news conference, Fuji TV reported. According to the ministry, among the 89 were 23 supervisory doctors and psychiatrists at St Marianna University Hospital in Kanagawa Prefecture -- which was at the center of a big scandal last year. They admitted they had obtained their licenses by fraudulently submitting reports on patients they had not treated. In some cases, patients had been involuntarily committed to the hospital by the psychiatrists.
Doctors are required by law to have at least three years' experience before they can receive a psychiatric practitioner's license.
© Japan Today
12 Comments
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Aly Rustom
Well that would explain some of the more colorful people you see on the station platforms and in the trains
gyroman
The panel only 'recommends' the revoking, far from charging them for fraud, which they have admitted to!
And where can I see the list of the 89? Shouldn't this be public information?
zurcronium
Note to self on job opportunities, skip school and become psychiatrist in Japan.
papigiulio
From what I see daily, I don't think a psychiatrist having a license or not makes any difference in Japan.
nath
So are we to infer that their licenses to practice psychiatry will be revoked, but that that they will be allowed to continue to practice medicine?
MsDelicious
I do not understand psychiatry as a profession at all. All you need are good friends.
Kabukilover
The panel recommended revoking the licenses. So is there a chance they won't be revoked? Isn't medical fraud a crime in Japan?
Valance Liberty
They can start with the psychiatrist that okayed the release of the guys who killed 19 in the nursing home recently. Because the university's here accept donations/presents from families that want their children to attend a good uni, there are ten's of thousands of unqualified doctors here in Japan. They all pass the exams here because the fees were paid, not because the student achieved the marks. I've never heard of anyone failing a college or uni degree here. Malpractice and misdiagnosis is rife here and swept under the table.
domtoidi
Psychiatry is a fraud.
No one with mental illness has ever been cured by a psychiatrist. Not a single person.
qwertyjapan
Psychiatrists openly admitting at the 2006 APA convention that they have no scientific tests to prove mental disorders are illness or disease, and that psychiatric drugs do not cure anyone.
“We do not know the causes [of any mental illness]. We don’t have the methods of ‘curing’ these illnesses yet.” —Dr. Rex Cowdry, psychiatrist and director of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 1995
“The time when psychiatrists considered that they could cure the mentally ill is gone. In the future the mentally ill have to learn to live with their illness.” —Norman Satorius, president of the World Psychiatric Association in 1994
“What’s a cure?…it’s just that it’s a term that we don’t use in the medical [psychiatric] profession.” —Dr. Joseph Johnson, California psychiatrist during court deposition, 2003
Psychiatrists were surveyed about their “fantasies” about their practice. Their Number 1 fantasy was: 1: “…I will be able to ‘cure’ the patient.” The Number 2 fantasy was: “The patient wants to know what his or her problem is.” —Dr. Sander Berger, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University, Psychiatric Times, 1998
that person
MsDelicious
Those who have not suffered a mental illness will never be able to understand what it's like. That is a basic fact we all need to understand. So please don't play ignorant and we won't wish it upon you. Just consider yourself lucky.
turbotsat
Better not have cats then.
Or pop acid ... have unfortunate genetics ... live in an urban environment ... etc., etc., etc. ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#.22Crazy_cat-lady_syndrome.22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Schizophrenia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Causes