Ep 72-Guinea-Pigging Geezer: An Unethical U of M Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist with a résumé full of prestige gets ordered to sit in on a medical ethics class. That single detail sent us down one of the most unsettling Minnesota medical board stories we’ve ever read, and it forced us to ask how clinical trial oversight can fail the very people it’s supposed to protect.

This isn’t just a story about one doctor. It’s a story about systems: pharmaceutical company payments that continue after discipline, FDA inspection limits, and the uncomfortable reality that “oversight” often arrives after irreversible harm. We also break up the heaviness with our usual real-life detours and a listener Medical Mishap that proves you should stay suspicious of angry filing cabinets.

If you care about medical ethics, patient safety, psychiatric medication, and how clinical research is policed, listen, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Resources: 

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice — 1998 Stipulation and Order, Faruk S. Abuzzahab, M.D.
 https://bmp.hlb.state.mn.us/disc/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%20%28PY17068%29/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%207-11-98.pdf

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice — 2006 Corrective Action
 https://bmp.hlb.state.mn.us/corr/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%20%28PY17068%29/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%206-15-06.pdf

Minnesota Board of Medical Practice — 2014 Stipulation and Order
 https://bmp.hlb.state.mn.us/disc/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%20%28PY17068%29/ABUZZAHAB%2C%20Faruk%20S%2011-8-14.pdf

Carl Elliott, “Guinea-Pigging,” The New Yorker
 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/01/07/guinea-pigging

Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts, “After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay,” The New York Times, June 3, 2007
 https://www.covalence.ch/index.php/2007/06/03/after-sanctions-doctors-get-drug-company-pay/

CBS Minnesota/WCCO — “Investigation Into Man’s Death Reveals Depth Of Minnesota’s Prescription Drug Problem”
 https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/prescription-drugs-mike-arens/

CBS Minnesota/WCCO — “Twin Cities Doctor Resigns Medical License After Accusations Of Over-Prescription”
 https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/doctor-prescription-medical-license/

FDA — Good Clinical Practice Resources
 https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-research-cder/good-clinical-practice

21 CFR § 312.60 — General Responsibilities of Investigators
 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-312/subpart-D/section-312.60

CMS Open Payments Database
 https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the U.S. for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
 https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/988

Transcript

Heat, Home Life, And A Wreck

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Amanda. Jenna. Hello. Hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hey oh, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Mine and Andy. How are we doing up north?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

We doing. We sweating, but we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Ooh, she is pretty hot. Pretty hot up in here. Hot.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Oh. Hot.

unknown 1:00

Hot.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Are you keeping cool?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Oh yeah. I mean, my husband does HVAC, so nice and cool here.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Yeah, I miss central air in my rental. I've got a little frigid air parked in the wall. Little wall unit. So the only place that's decent is the living room, and then everywhere else is stifling.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

But have you been kicking it in the living room then?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

No, I just spray myself with water and put a fan on.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

You're like, hopefully I'm cool enough to fall asleep and then don't wake up till morning.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah. I don't mean to complain.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

No, it's just calm.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Yeah, it's super hot. But yeah, you've had you've had a day. You want to talk about it? Your husband? Or should I cut that out?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah. No, that's okay. Sorry. I sorry, y'all listeners. I just got really confused because I was like, did my dog literally just go hide under the bed? Yeah, she did. What is she doing? I told her she couldn't nest, so she was like, I'll go lay under the bed. What the heck? Okay, yeah. My husband got in a car because not on the way home from work. He is okay, obviously, because we're recording. And yeah, so he got smoked by someone not paying attention. Coming up to a light that had just turned green, so he wasn't going very fast. And boy, did she wreck his truck.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

I mean to wreck a truck. You obviously weren't paying attention. Stay off your phones, people.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

PSA. Stay off those phones. Put the phones down. Put the phones down. He has a baby and a wife and a dog at home. Put your phones down. Yeah. And also, I don't know, needs his truck for work, so minor details. He thinks it is. There was this guy. I don't actually know. Oh, maybe the tow truck came because the other girl's car. Her definitely is trashed. But it's Adam knew the tow truck driver, and this guy that was with him looked at the bed of his truck and was like, Yeah, it's total. Oh no. Because it's not just the like bed of the truck that's broken, it's the frame is bent.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Yeah, no, you can't fix that. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh my rotten less. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

But you know what? We're nice and cool in the house.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yeah, and he's okay. Nobody got seriously hurt.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

No, he's upstairs reading to the baby. So he's he's doing okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Well, that's good. I am on a super lesser note, I had a little bit of an embarrassing day because I I had a patient come up to me and he was like, Oh, you know, I hope this appointment goes fast because, you know, Bail and Hey and my airbag broke, or something. I I swear he said airbag, but I don't know what that means. And he was like, Yeah, so I remember I'm like, Oh, I hate it when that I'm being all sarcastic. I go, I hate it when that happens. He's like, Oh, you you bail hay. And I was like, Oh, yeah, been for years.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Then he goes, favorite pastime.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

I'm

Accidental Hay Expert At Work

SPEAKER_03 4:02

like, oh yeah, I'm an old hand at that. And he's like, Oh, cool. Well, I've got a something, something with a with a such and such baler and uh this sticking out of the back of it. I don't even know. I mean, it's so much above my pay grade. I have no idea what he's talking about. And then he looks at me and he goes, Do you like circular or or square bales? And I was like, Definitely circular. Um, circular, because I mean, circles are are nice, right? He's like, Yeah, those are better for the weather. Yeah. So apparently I answered correctly, but I felt like such a heel because I thought he knew I was kidding. Like, oh, like I wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

You're like, how do I back off of this?

SPEAKER_03 4:44

And he was so pleased that we could talk hay balers together. And I was like, Where am I? Like now. Oh, I'm so sorry. You know, he went home and told his friends about you. Oh, dude, I am so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

This audiologist bails hay too.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

She knows exactly what I'm talking about. My airbag went out and I have such and such, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I hate it when that happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Like you're like, do I look like when my hay bailer's earbag goes out?

SPEAKER_03 5:12

I was thinking maybe it was something that like protects him from an accident, but it sounded like it was something that you need in order to wrap up this old grass. I don't, I don't know. I obviously need to do some research, but so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Before he has a follow-up, I would probably look a little more into that or or just leave the appointment with, so I have a confession.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

I just hate to burst his bubble. He was so thrilled that someone he could tuck hay baling machines with someone. Actually, Googled what does a hay baler look like?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

And man, I'm trying to learn, but I must confess, I speaking of hay bales, that reminds me of like farming land, right? You know how you were joking about getting a selfie with the bear. Well, obviously you didn't, or I would have seen it, but one of our listeners, Rich, shout out Rich. He sent me a selfie that he took with some cows. And he said, much easier to get than with the bear.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Oh, cute. Yeah. I could probably do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Get me a cow. They're so cute.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Cows are so cute. They are so cute. Do you so total side note? But like you TikTok, right? Obviously, we have a TikTok. Yeah. There's this guy, I forget what his name is, but he, if you've seen the guy that has a pink guitar, like acoustic guitar, and he

Cow Selfies And Animal Music TikTok

SPEAKER_03 6:42

plays for animals, and the animals come to him.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yes. Yeah. So he normally does like the they're just like laying on him.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Yes. The horses and cows. I mean, I mean, obviously it's super scary. He's doing like hippos and tigers and stuff that should eat him or trample him. But he when he does the cows and the horses, it's just so amazing because they just love him so much.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

He's just like Farinading these animals.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Yeah. I want to be in that field with him when he's playing. But anyway, so that's a happy place.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Do we have any corrections for last week? I don't think so. Nobody's been barking up my tree.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

That's a good thing. Yeah. All right. Well, let's let's go to our first sponsor because you're yawning, and I feel like this sponsor's for you. Strong Coffee Company. They offer premium instant blends that combine convenience with health benefits. Their standout Black Fair Trade Instant Coffee delivers a smooth, robust flavor while adding 15 grams of protein, five grams of MCTs, and 250 milligrams of adaptogens like ashwagandha and theanine. This formula provides lasting energy, sharper focus, calm without jitters, and even supports better sleep and mental clarity, which is ideal for busy moms and busy professionals. If you like creamy, then uh they also have choices that you can blend lattes. Their

Sponsor Break Strong Coffee Company

SPEAKER_03 8:10

lattes have organic arabica coffee with protein, collagen, hyaluronic acid, and healthy fats to fuel both your body and mind. Committed to quality and eco-friendly practices, strong coffee delivers great taste, quick convenience, and a nutritious boost to your daily routine. Use our code STAYSUSPIS at strongcoffeecompany.com for 20% off your order. Oh, I just thought of a correction. So just to back up a little bit, you may have wondered why we didn't have our music and applause uh at the beginning. And it's because I accidentally deleted the applause sound bite on my roadcaster. So unless I can get a bunch of people together to record a massive applause, which I would love to do, we don't get any applause anymore. And I thought crickets and trombones probably wouldn't were gonna be a good substitutes.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

So you know, they just don't really slap the same wah wah wah.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah, we don't want to start that way. So yeah, stay tuned as I take some time to learn a bit more about how to actually be a sound

Lost Applause And Today’s Topic Setup

SPEAKER_03 9:20

engineer. But meanwhile, today our topic is about the University of Minnesota psychiatrist and his nefarious practices. But this is an interesting story as to why and how I chose this topic. There is a friend of the podcast who is prefers to remain anonymous because she used to work with this individual.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Oh, she is.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

So in passing, she said, you know, because she's a friend of mine as well as a friend of the podcast. And I mean, any friend of the podcast is a friend of mine, but anyway, we ran across each other and she said, You need to do so-and-so. He's a psychiatrist from the University

Meet Farouk Abu Zahab

SPEAKER_03 10:03

of Minnesota. And she said the name, but of course the name went over my head. So I was like, Okay, yeah, I'll look into it. And so I just started searching like psychiatrists who've been less than ideal from the University of Minnesota, and I came across Farouk Abu N Hazad, which we're gonna talk about him at length today. So did this whole episode and then today actually ran into her, the listener who friend who recommended this case, and I said, Hey, do you wanna give me like a quote or something I can use about your experience? Because she actually worked with this guy, your experience with Abu Hazad. And she was like, Who's that? Oh no, and I went, excuse me, squeeze me. This is a nefarious psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who did all these horrible things, and she was like, No, that's not who I was talking about. Oh my gosh, that's not my colleague, and she gave me another name. Oh my god. So, listeners, I think we may have opened a rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So you know what? The dentists are still we're still off of the dentist. We are on psychiatrists.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

So she said, Well, the whole what's funny is the whole reason she recommended this case to begin with, not this one, but the one I thought was this, was because she's like, you know, you guys do so many cases from England. LOL. Before that, it was so many cases about dentists. Let's do something local for Amanda and I. Let's talk about University of Minnesota. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, let's do that. So apparently we're gonna be talking lots about uh so I haven't had any time because I only found this out today that there's more where this came from, which is hugely disappointing and also something I plan to look into further. So, but meanwhile, the majority of my resources came from the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice and then the New Yorker, New York Times. I mean, all of our references, including resources for listeners, will be listed in our show notes. So, trigger warning, this episode contains mention of suicides. And I also want to report, I want to note that on the reporting of this episode, I try really hard to distinguish between what the medical board found, what the medical board alleged stipulated, versus the media reporting and later unresolved or disputed claims. So some board documents were stipulations or corrective actions rather than actually a criminal proceeding or criminal statement. So wherever the records say that Abu Zahab denied, disputed, or didn't admit or denied allegations, we try to treat those limits accordingly for legal reasons. So just think of allegedly if you hear something that's not quite clear. All right. So it's 1998. We're at the University of Minnesota, where a professor named Carl Elliott received a curious phone call. On the other end was a psychiatrist named Farouk Abu Zahab. He wanted to sit in on Elliott's medical ethics class, not because he was auditing for pleasure, not because he was returning to campus to sharpen an academic interest. It was because the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice ordered him to take a course in medical ethics after a disciplinary case involving psychiatric drug research. That detail makes the call hard to forget. The detail that makes the call hard to forget is that Abu Zahab

Power, Prestige, And Trial Money

SPEAKER_03 13:42

did not sound like a man encountering medical ethics for the first time. Elliot later wrote that Abu Zahab told him that he'd once been a University of Minnesota faculty member. He also chaired the Minnesota Psychiatric Society's Ethics Committee of all things. So this is a psychiatrist with an ethics resume that had been sent back to ethics class. Irony much. So before Farook Abu Zahab became a name in a medical board order, and before local television cameras showed up, and before the New York Times asked why pharmaceutical companies were still paying him, he was a young physician moving through some of the most prestigious corridors in American psychiatry. He was born in Beirut. His first language was Arabic. In 1959, he received his medical degree from the American University of Beirut and completed a rotating internship there. Then he came to Baltimore for a three-year psychiatry residency at Johns Hopkins. By the early 1960s, he was in Minnesota, where he would earn a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota and become board certified in psychiatry. A later board record also described him as certified in clinical pharmacology, which was a field concerned with drugs broadly, not just psychiatric medications. And so that's the first thing to understand about Abu Zahab. His career was built around medications, not just prescribing them, teaching about them, explaining them, using them in patients whose illnesses were often severe, chronic, and difficult to treat. He arrived in Minnesota at the moment when psychiatry was changing. The older image of psychiatry, the couch, the long silence, the slow excavation of memory, was being joined by something newer and more pharmaceutical. Antipsychotics, antidepressants, tranquilizers, sedatives, mood stabilizers, drugs were becoming central to the treatment of mental illness. Abu Zahab placed himself directly inside that transformation. Board records say he worked full-time at the University of Minnesota from 1962 to 1972 and continued teaching there part-time after that. By 1973, he was in private practice under the name Clinical Psychopharmacology Consultants. He had been chief of psychiatry at St. Mary's Hospital, president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society, and chair of that society's ethics committee, and principal investigator in many psychotropic drug studies. A biographical note later described clinical psychopharmacology consultants as a practice founded in 1973 for clinical investigations of psychoactive medications. The same note said that in 1998, he expanded his interests into anti-aging medicine and brain aging. So the man at the center of the story was not drifting at the edge of medicine. He was rooted in Minnesota medicine. He had a university connection, hospital roles, private practice, professional titles, and a specialty that made him valuable to drug companies. He also had a family life in Minnesota. Public biographical records list marriages and children, and at least one of his children later entered medicine. His family members are not part of the disciplinary story, but the biographical fact helps place him. Abu Zahab was not a transient doctor passing through town. He built a life, a name, and a medical identity in the Twin Cities. He was the doctor who knew about drugs. He was a doctor who took hard cases, who could talk to pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, patients, and professional societies in the language of brain chemistry. A psychiatrist who specialized in psychopharmacology was valuable to the drug makers looking for investigators, someone who could identify eligible patients, supervise medication changes, document symptoms, report results, and move a study forward. In that world, the doctor was not only treating patients, he was also producing data. And clinical trials were paid work. Drug companies paid investigators and research sites to run studies. In Abu Sahab's case, the New York Times later reported that drug makers paid him thousands of dollars for every patient that he recruited into some of these clinical trials. The Times also reported that after he was disciplined, at least a dozen drug makers still paid him for research or marketing work. But that connection to pharmaceutical companies didn't begin as a scandal. It began as part of the machinery of clinical research. So paying a psychiatrist to run a clinical trial is not automatically unethical. Clinical trials require work, staff, records, monitoring, and time. But paying a treating psychiatrist for each patient that he recruits creates an obvious conflict. The doctor's financial interest begins to sit beside the patient's medical interest. In psychiatry, where patients may be suicidal, psychotic, or dependent on the doctor's authority, that conflict isn't theoretical. It can shape who gets invited and how risk is explained and whether refusal is treated as a patient's right or as a lost opportunity. The ethical line isn't simply whether money changed hands. The line is whether the money paid for careful research or whether it rewarded enrollment itself. In Abu Zahab's case, that distinction becomes central because patients were not healthy volunteers. They were vulnerable psychiatric patients whose treatment, hospitalization, medication changes, and research eligibility could all be controlled by the same physician. Those details come later in the paper trail, but they matter early because they help explain the world forming around him. A private psychiatric practice where severely ill patients, experimental drugs, pharmaceutical sponsors, hospital decisions, and professional reputation began to overlap. The patients who came through Abu Zahab's practice in the 1970s and 80s were often desperately ill. Some were psychotic, some were suicidal, and some were dependent on controlled substances. Some had cycled through hospitalizations and medication failures. They were the kind of patients who could make a doctor look unusually skilled when things improved, and who could make dangerous decisions look defensible when things went badly. And that was the gray zone where Abu Zahab's career developed. Difficult patients, powerful drugs, pharmaceutical research, and a reputation for expertise. Over time, the same qualities that made him valuable began to appear in the records as warning signs. He was not just prescribing medications, he was combining them, changing them, stopping them, restarting them, and in some cases moving vulnerable psychiatric patients into investigational drug studies. The question was no longer whether he understood psychotropic medication. The question was whether anyone could tell from the charts why was he making the decisions that he made. That question followed him into the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice proceedings. When the board later scrutinized his treatment of dozens of patients, Abu Zahab did not present himself as careless. He presented himself as a doctor working at the hardest edge of psychiatry. He denied that his prescribing fell below the standard of care, and he argued that his decisions had to be understood in the context of the patients that he treated. These are people with serious complex mental illness. He submitted affidavits from colleagues who described his experience, his knowledge, and his willingness to accept referrals of difficult cases. And that defense is important because it shows how the pattern could develop in plain sight. This was a doctor who takes difficult cases and was indispensable. A doctor who knows medications can become trusted with combinations that would alarm anyone else. A doctor who's known as an expert can begin to operate with unusual latitude. Each decision might be defended as clinical judgment, and each risky patient might be explained as unusually complicated. And each medication change may be placed inside a larger story of expertise. But the board would eventually describe that very same pattern in a different language, not as bold clinical judgment, but as inadequate diagnosis, inadequate monitoring, poor documentation, and reckless disregard for patient welfare. In its 1998 order, the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice said the minimum standard of care for prescribing psychoactive drugs required a physician to establish a diagnosis, identify target symptoms, choose medications appropriate to those symptoms, and monitor whether benefits outweighed the adverse effects. The board said that that duty became even more rigorous when there were signs that a patient was becoming dependent on these drugs. And then the board looked at Abu Sahari. Charts and said the opposite pattern appeared. In approximately 46 patients, he regularly failed to substantiate diagnoses. He failed

Board Findings On Reckless Prescribing

SPEAKER_03 22:52

to monitor whether drug combinations were appropriate, and he failed to evaluate whether benefits outweighed harms. The board described that as a reckless, if not willful, disregard for patient welfare. And the concern was not limited to ordinary prescribing. It reached into research. The board said in a number of cases, Abu Zahab enrolled psychiatrically disturbed and vulnerable patients into investigational drug studies without ensuring that they met eligibility criteria and then kept them in studies after their conditions deteriorated. And according to the New York Times, warning signs about his research practices had appeared long before the public disciplinary case. The Times reported that FDA audits in 1979 and 1984 concluded that Abu Zaha violated protocols in every audited study he led and reported inaccurate data to drug makers. The article also reported that he often oversaw four to eight drug trials at the same time and moved patients from one study to another, and sometimes gave experimental drugs at a first initial consultation. And once he even hospitalized a patient who didn't need to be hospitalized solely to enroll him in a study. That's where this episode begins to tighten, not with one shocking act, but with a professional world forming around him. The university, the hospitals, the psychiatric society, the ethics committee, the private psychopharmacology practice, the clinical trials, the difficult patients, the pharmaceutical payments, the confidence of an expert, and the fragility of the people who came to him for help. By the time Carl Elliott received this phone call, Abu Zahab was already carrying decades of that history. Elliot had recently begun teaching bioethics and philosophy at the University of Minnesota when Abu Zahab asked to sit in on his ethics class. There had been trouble in a research study, Elliot later wrote, and the state licensing board had ordered him to take medical ethics. So we're back to where we started, the beginning of the episode. A psychiatrist with a long career in psychopharmacology, a former University of Minnesota faculty member, a president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society, a former chair of an ethics committee, was being sent back to ethics class. By then, the lesson was already in the charts. And that irony would be enough for an anecdote, but the records behind it tell a dark story. A state medical board file involving 46 patients, several deaths, investigational drug studies, controlled substances, allegations of inadequate monitoring, and a career that didn't end when the board stepped in. So in 1998, the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice disciplined Abu Zahab after accusing him of reckless, if not willful, disregard for the welfare of those patients. According to later reporting by the New York Times, five of the 46 patients died in his care or shortly afterwards. The board suspended his license for seven months.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

And then yeah, and then restricted it for two years.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

What an odd amount. Like I know that's very short too, but seven? It's such an odd number.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Mm-hmm. Yeah, how'd they come on? Five lives? Okay, seven months. It's the next part of the story that's the part that makes the case bigger than one doctor, because years after that discipline, Abu Zahab was still being paid by pharmaceutical companies. So he had his license revoked and he was still being paid to run these drug trials, and he was still involved in drug testing. According to the New York Times, at least a dozen, a dozen drug makers paid him for research or marketing work after he'd been disciplined.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

And did they know that he didn't have his license?

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Well, that's the thing. There's according to the FDA, they're supposed to look into it. They're not required to make a decision. They're not required or recommended to not. They're just required to look into it. And then what?

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Well, and if they already cleared him and have been doing research with him, I guess, like unless you have a protocol that's like in X amount of time, you must re-verify everyone. I mean, if they didn't have that, then why would they ever look again?

SPEAKER_02 27:07

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Yeah, I wonder if that's what happened. So it just seems like nothing would slow him down. He'd been licensed in Minnesota since 1965. Board records described him as a board as board certified in psychiatry and clinical pharmacology. He treated complex patients, people with psychosis, depression, chronic pain, substance dependence, suicidality, and heavy medication histories. And these are not easy cases, but these are exactly the kind of cases where a physician's judgment had to be precise and where the chart had to show the logic of every major decision. The state board's criticism wasn't that Abu Zahab practiced in a difficult specialty because everyone knows psychiatry is difficult. Drug treatment for severe mental illness is difficult. The board's criticism was that the difficulty of the cases appeared to be matched by too little documentation, not enough monitoring, and too much tolerance for patients deteriorating while the medication decisions continued. The board said a physician prescribing psychoactive drugs had to establish a diagnosis, identify the symptoms that were being treated, and choose drugs appropriate to those symptoms, and then monitor whether the benefit outweighed the harm. So for patients with addiction, dependence, suicidality, or psychosis, that duty becomes even sharper. And the records read like a warning about what happens when the paper trails thin and the stakes are fatal. But meanwhile, it's time for a break and a channel.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

I'm only laughing because in my head I went, Oh no. And I was like, that is way too aggressive.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

We were both looking at each other, like, who's gonna who's gonna alley cat this?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna come in way too hot.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

It is way too hot. For a chart no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. Thank you for that. I love that. Welcome to the Chart No segment where we learn about what's happening in medicine and healthcare. Scientists at Northwestern University have solved a molecular puzzle that had stalled cancer-related research for nearly three decades. The story begins with rye pollen, not as an allergy trigger, but as a source of two unusual natural compounds called cequillicides A and B. Nearly 30 years ago, researchers found that these molecules appeared to help animal models fight tumors, but the work hit a wall because no one could confirm their exact three-dimensional structures. And so without that blueprint, scientists couldn't reliably study how the compounds

Chart No Molecular Breakthrough In Cancer

SPEAKER_03 29:47

worked or build better versions of them. The Northwestern team solved this problem by building the molecules from scratch in the lab in a process known as total synthesis. That was unusually difficult because cicalocides A and B contain a rare, highly strained, 10-membered ring, which is a kind of chemical architecture that's hard to assemble and easy to misread. For years, researchers debated between two possible structures that were almost identical, except for one mirror image region. In chemistry, that small difference can completely change how a molecule behaves in the body. By synthesizing both of these candidate versions and comparing them with riplen samples, the team confirmed that the confirmed the correct structures for the first time. So that doesn't mean rhypollen is a cancer treatment. It doesn't mean these molecules are ready for patients yet, but it means that researchers finally have a map. What the structures confirm, scientists can now ask better questions. Which part of the molecule is biologically active, how may it interact with the immune system, and whether or not chemists can design safer, stronger, more drug-like versions. So it's a reminder that drug discovery often begins in strange places: a tree bark, a fungus, a poppy, a soil microbe, and sometimes pollen from a cereal crop. The medicine isn't in the headline yet. And if it ever comes, it will come from what scientists can now test. So I brought that up because I don't want to paint a picture that all the drug companies are big, bad, evil companies. We're doing they're doing important work, and we can't get there without trials and research. So it's it's a systemic problem, and then it's a you know nefarious individuals who are led by greed, in my opinion. But anyway, with that back to the story, we're gonna talk about a couple cases, one of the most haunting of which was known publicly as Susan Endersby. In the board file, she was patient number 35, a 41-year-old woman with schizophrenia, depression, and suicidal thoughts. She'd been hospitalized in May 1994, and nursing notes described her as very suicidal during the first weeks of her admission. She was started on an antidepressant, venilfaxine, which I think is effects her, and appeared to improve. Then she was referred to Abu Zahab for an investigational antipsychotic drug study involving haloperidol and sertendol.

Susan Endersby And The Washout Period

SPEAKER_03 32:16

According to the board, the study excluded suicidal patients or those with serious suicidal ideation, in the investigator's opinion. The board said the record did not explain why a patient who had so recently been very suicidal and who started improving on an antidepressant treatment was then entered into a study that required her antidepressant to be stopped. Under the study protocol, her antidepressant was discontinued. She entered what's called a placebo washout period. A washout period is a designated time during which participants in a clinical trial stop taking any of their previous medications. I used to work with a neurologist who called it medication vacation.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Oh wow. Yeah. I mean, I don't hate it.

SPEAKER_03 32:59

Shout out to Dr. Bree. Shout out to Dr. Reeves. Do you remember Dr. Reeves? No. No?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

At your last place of work?

SPEAKER_03 33:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Oh. No.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

This period is essential for ensuring any residual effects from prior treatments don't influence the outcomes of the new treatment being tested. But like in my mind, it's like you would only do this if you haven't had effective treatment elsewhere. Why would you switch it up to some investigational trial when someone's already had the solution delivered to them?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

I mean, why are we investigating something else?

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Yeah. So subsequently, her suicidal feelings intensified. The board said the study protocol didn't allow the hospital, it didn't allow hospital leave until later. But Abu Zahab allowed her to leave during the washout period. So here she is off her meds, getting not only that, but you know, you come off of these things, you're not getting the help you need, but you're also getting horrific side effects from some of these medications. And days after allowing her to leave, he authorized an unaccompanied pass. So during that pass, she died by suicide after jumping from the Franklin Avenue Bridge. Oh my gosh. So tragic. So that case became part of public record, but it wasn't the only case. Another patient, later identified by the New York Times as David Olsen, appeared in the board file as patient number 46. Olsen had been treated with clozuril, a powerful antipsychotic often used for treatment-resistant schizophrenia. According to the Times, Abu Zahab repeatedly tried to recruit him into clinical drug trials. Remember, drug makers paid Abu Zahab thousands of dollars for every patient that he recruited. In July 1997, Olsen again refused to become a test subject. The Times reported that Abu Zahab then discharged him from the hospital, even though he was suicidal. And so Olsen died by suicide two weeks later.

David Olsen And Trial Recruitment Pressure

SPEAKER_03 34:58

I hate this guy so much.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

I'm just sitting here shaking my head, like so awful.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

The board's finding on Olson was direct. Abu Zahab failed to appreciate the risks of taking him off Clozurel, failed to respond to his rapid deterioration, and largely disregarded his suicidality. Olsen's sister told The Times that her brother seemed to receive attention from Abu Zahab only when he was willing to enter a drug study. In her view, the relationship had become transactional. A sick patient was valuable when he was eligible for research, but less valuable when he declined the research. Abu Zahab rejected the board's findings in an interview with the Times, calling them, quote, without heft, end quote. What an arrogant arse. He said drug companies knew about his disciplinary record and that he has had helped study some of the best-known drugs in psychiatry, including Paxil, Prozac, Respiridol, Cerroquil, Zoloft, and Zaprexa. And that list is its own kind of resume. I mean, these aren't obscure compounds tucked away in forgotten trials. These are major psychiatric drugs, and some of them among the most recognizable medications in modern mental health care. The disturbing part isn't simply that Abu Zahab had relationships with drug makers. I mean, clinical trials need investigators and new drugs need to be studied. Physicians with real expertise can play a legitimate role in that process. The disturbing part is the mismatch between the industry's stated standards and the public record of some of the doctors that it hired. The drug industry's own trial guidelines said investigators should be selected based on qualifications, training, and relevant clinical or research expertise. And yet, the Times found that Abu Zahab was far from alone. In Minnesota, where payment records were unusually public, the paper identified more than 100 doctors who had been disciplined or criticized by the Minnesota State Medical Board and later received money from drug companies. From 1997 to 2005, those doctors received a combined 1.7 million from drug makers. And at least 38 of these doctors received payments while they're still under sanction. Abu Zahab received more than 55,000

How Disciplined Doctors Still Get Paid

SPEAKER_03 37:13

during that period of time. The sanctions varied. Some doctors have been reprimanded, some were ordered into retraining, some had their licenses suspended. And according to the Times analysis, 39 have been penalized for inappropriate prescribing, 21 for substance abuse, 12 for substandard care, and three for mismanagement of drug studies. Really makes you want to run to a psychiatrist.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

In Minnesota. I mean, I guess we know more about Minnesota just because we're more transparent in our, you know, record records being publicly available. So, and and these records weren't complete. So the true number might have been even higher. And we're not the worst state. It's just the state, like I said, where we could examine these records. And so that's how Abu Zahub's case widens. It starts with one psychiatrist in Minnesota and then opens us our eyes into a national problem. I mean, the people entrusted to test drugs on human subjects were often being selected and paid by the very companies that stood to profit from the results. And the screening systems were weak enough that public disciplinary records didn't always stop the money. The Food and Drug Administration wasn't built to catch every problem. The Times reported that the FDA inspected at most 1% of clinical trials. At the time, Dr. Janet Woodcock was the FDA's deputy commissioner and chief medical officer, and told the paper that the agency needed to modernize how it protected people in clinical trials. The article also reported that drug companies were not required to inform the FDA when they discovered investigators falsifying data. That's incredible to me. So that detail changes this feel of this story because oversight depended on a fragile chain. I mean, companies choosing investigators, investigators reporting accurately, medical boards acting when things went wrong, and federal investigators inspecting only a small fraction of the research landscape. How could we hope to ever catch all of these areas where missteps can happen? So but the 1998 discipline did impose restriction. Abu Zahab's license was suspended and then reinstated under conditions. So after that seven months, he had to have controlled substance prescriptions reviewed and co-signed. He had to keep a prescription log. He had to complete records management training. He had to complete medical ethics education related to research. And he was barred from directing or assisting with drug studies while he was under the order. And then those restrictions ended by 2000. And then his license was unconditional again, so barely two years later. And so after that, drug makers continued to hire him. Two of these companies that hired him that were named by the Times were Takeda and Asae, which were both Japanese global pharmaceutical companies. Takeda confirmed Abu Zahab was doing a company finance study of Rosarim, which is a sleep drug. And Asae said he had signed a clinical trial agreement to study Arecept, an Alzheimer's drug. But after a reporter asked about his disciplinary history, the company told him he wasn't qualified to serve as an investigator. And AstraZeneca, for which Abu Zahab said he performed clinical trials and gave marketing lectures, said it was concerned about his disciplinary record. But only after the reporters came questioning. They become concerned only after reporter calls. And then there's internal review only after public scrutiny. So by then the facts weren't hidden in a locked drawer. The Times noted a simple search could reveal that Abu Zahab's 1998 disciplinary file was there. His case had been reported locally. The Boston Globe featured him in a front-page article about psychiatric drug experiments. An NBC's dateline covered the suicide of a woman in a drug experiment that he supervised. And yet, the payments continued, and the case did not stay in the past. In 2006, so he's been going since the 70s. In 2006, the Minnesota board again criticized Abu Zahab, this time over prescriptions written under names that weren't the patient's legal names.

unknown 41:36

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

The corrective action agreement said he met with the board's committee to discuss allegations that he wrote prescriptions for patients using false names and failed to provide records for a patient. He agreed to create a written policy for handling requests to prescribe under pseudonyms or non-legal names.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

So And they're like, Yeah, you broke the rules, but create your own protocol, sure. Write it up and send it to us.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Like what? Yeah, you can write all you want too. It doesn't mean you're going to follow it. So I mean,

Years Of Complaints And Slow Oversight

SPEAKER_03 42:05

this especially since this corrective action wasn't formal discipline, it echoes a theme that followed the earlier case. The prescriptions, records, oversight, and boundaries that he just was not following. And then we come to 2014. In 2014, the board received complaints that Abu Zahab had prescribed excessive quantities of medications to multiple patients. It audited his records and found that in seven patient cases, his prescribing practices fell below minimum acceptable standards. Abu Zahab didn't admit or deny the allegations. According to the order, he said the medication combinations were medically indicated and appropriate, while acknowledging that his clinical notes could have been better. The board imposed a stage suspension, a reprimand, you know T-boy, prescribing restrictions, supervision by a psychiatrist, quarterly meetings with a board designee, and more than $7,000 in costs, which is like probably less than one drug trial.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Oh yeah, for sure, because it was getting $1,000 a patient.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

Thousands of dollars. Yeah. That phrase that his clinical notes could have been better is like way too small for the record around what it actually meant. Because in ordinary medicine, poor notes can look like a clerical problem. But in these cases, the notes were the only indication and logic of care that should have been there. Like, why? What is your thought process behind taking a suicidal patient off of a medication? Why are you keeping a deteriorating patient in a study? What's the reason to continue controlled substances in a patient showing signs of dependence? Why did you discharge a suicidal patient after he refused a drug trial? Why does the risk-benefit calculation still favor the plan? And this speaks to me so much because here we are in a much less, you know, audiology, a much less, it's much less to lose in terms of like life, right? And we are just so drilled that we need to document absolutely every thought process to make sure that if we get run over by a bus tomorrow, someone can come in and take over and figure out, okay, this is what's best for this patient based on your history of the patient and their symptoms and everything. And here that these people, this is like life and death, balance of life and death. And he's not even documenting, not even to cover his ass. I mean, because let's face it, he was nefarious decisions, but I was gonna say he's got a God complex.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

So doesn't need to write.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

He wasn't even justifying his medical. judgment though. In 2017, the story surfaced again through local reporting in Minnesota. WCCO TV, a local channel in Minnesota, invested the death, investigated the death of Mike Ahrons, a Bloomington man whose family found hundreds of empty, hundreds of empty prescription bottles in his home after he died. The report said Ahrens had a history of multisubstance dependence and that Abu Zahab's name appeared repeatedly in his prescription records. WCCO reported that Abu Zahab prescribed him multiple psychiatric medications and Tramadol, which is an opioid pain medication, while also noting that there wasn't any evidence that the drugs prescribed by Abu Zahab directly caused Aaron's heart disease or death. But in other words, not every bad outcome in the file was directly caused by one physician, but across decades, state records and reporting repeatedly returned to the same cluster of concerns prescribing judgment, patient deterioration, research recruitment, documentation, and whether oversight arrived early enough to protect the people most exposed to harm. In July 2017, the story resurfaced again under the headline Twin Cities Doctor Resigns Medical License after accusations of overprescription. The article published July 28, 2017, reported that Abu Zahab, then 85, had given up his license he was 85. Jesus. Yeah. So I named this episode partly after one of the articles about this had said had called him a geezer. A geezer who finally retired so before he got busted. So anyway so this was related to the Mike Aaron story about the overprescribing of opioids after hip surgery. And and so Abu Zahab had prescribed Aaron's at least eight medications. And so earlier that month the Minnesota Medical Board temporarily suspended Abu Zahab's license over allegations that included other unethical and unprofessional conduct, fraudulent billing practices and prescribing outside medically accepted purposes. So he did this before the boot he quit before the board could move further, resigning his license. The article gave I know the article gave the final chapter a local human frame. Aaron's family was relieved that the license was gone but they were still left asking why had the system taken so long. WCCO noted that complaints involving Abu Zahub stretch back decades, which we talked about, tying this 2017 resignation back to earlier board actions as early as the 70s and 80s. So the study doesn't end with an ethics class, a suspension or one tragic patient. It just ends with a record that kept reopening. The psychiatrist with academic and professional standing becomes a clinical trial investigator. And even though federal audits raise concerns patients are moved through drug studies people die of suicide and the state board suspends and restricts the doctor's license but he continues to get paid by pharmaceutical companies. So then he gets full prescribing practices and returns again. So it's frustrating because it's not like the system didn't act it did. The board did all the suspending restricting monitoring reprimanding finding and criticizing and it was the drug companies that finally eventually expressed concern and one of those companies only ended their trial relationship after a reporter asked questions. So this is just so disturbing to me. It's just so slow. It's so slow to act medical discipline often looks decisive on paper like ooh a stayed suspension a corrective action. But at the end of it there's a system to move forward and patients don't get the luxury. Susan Endersby did not get a second draft of her protocol. David Olson didn't get a later board hearing. The patients whose charts became exhibits didn't experience oversight as a policy debate. They experienced it as medication changes, study recruitment, discharge decisions, refills, hospital passes, and the quiet authority of a doctor's signature so the opening image remains a clean one for me. Farouk Abu Zahab calls a university professor and asks to sit in the back of a medical ethics class. But by then the lesson was already in the records the board file the FDA audits the payment data the company responses and the patient deaths all pointed towards the same uncomfortable truth. In clinical research the person choosing the patient changing the drug reading the symptoms and signing the chart is the safeguard and when that safeguard fails the results are devastating bonkers disguise bonkers.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

This case is bonkers this case opens a lot of questions I didn't know I had about these kind of things because we've never covered a psychiatrist before first and foremost there is zero percent of me that ever wants to work until I'm 85 what the age he was making good money just just pushing people through studies. Yeah. Yeah don't care zero percent.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

It's not like he was charting for you dude wasn't actually doing reports or anything.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

You know what you're right that admin burden that many of us feel in the medical community he didn't have that because DG just didn't do it. So true. So maybe it would be easier to work till you're 85 if you're just collecting a paycheck without all the it has to be the whole pesky documenting what you're actually doing. Yeah so maybe you said this or maybe I just don't get it or what but why like if there were whisperings of this guy being a class A D bag and like unethically recruiting people etc etc why did the company like as did no other doctors want to do the research? Was there no one else like why did the companies keep asking him to do studies?

SPEAKER_03 50:56

He was the big name. He was one of the originals he was the kind of the OG. So they wanted the name yeah I think that's part of it but I also think we have opened a rabbit hole as I've said because out of those hundred cases that are questionable around that same you know time period late 90s early 2000s it was a free for all with these drug companies. And so the FDA has guidelines but they don't have the authority to actually there's no punitive like they have guidelines and then the medical board can they they have a very restricted set of disciplinary actions that they can enforce. So in in one of I think the loopholes that the drug companies got around because they're not interested in in doing all this like back like you said we might already have somebody as a big name they're not going to keep looking into his background all of this they are required to recruit someone who's qualified and reasonable and whatever but if they go do a background check and find that he's that this individual has a criminal history or has been you know had their license revoked for a period of time or some kind of disciplinary action there's no like they don't have to report that back to the FDA and say oh we figured that out and now we're not there's nothing that says that they don't get to continue on. No it's just like oh you should do this. Okay. And then what? We did it and we don't care what the result is. Yeah. So to me that just seems like ridiculous kind of a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

And so they're they're paying him tons of money because he's the big name so everyone wants to go to him. He's got a bigger patient database to recruit etc etc but then in turn they're making more money because he's collecting the data and putting out the research. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

And he's recruiting people without necessarily them meeting the eligibility criteria. So it might be more stringent. Yeah he's absolutely lying about it and lying about results probably to favor the drug companies so that they get more yeah yeah so it's a it's a win-win or I'll scratch your back you scratch mine situation.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Completely flabbergasted still about um just putting patients in multiple trials at once like what?

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Yeah you know how hard it I'm already the field I think is super hard and through no fault of their own you could even do genetic studies to see what medication might help your depression or whatever, but it's just basically throwing a dart at the wall and seeing what sticks. So to finally find something that actually works for somebody and then take them off of it? What the hell? That's just so awful.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

When you said that I was like gosh and it and you know it takes X amount of time to even see if it does work for you. And so like going through that trial and trial and trial okay well let's up the dose and give it a little more time. Okay let's maybe try this one. Like when someone finally nails something that's working for them how tragic to just take them off it because because what? Because what's the answer to everything money.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

And then put them on some something that hasn't been substantiated. And not only that they don't get to have anything while they're in this washout period. So they're on no medication. So they're already suicidal they're getting better oh you know what screw that we're gonna not only give you the side effects of coming off this other medication we're gonna let you be absolutely unmedicated before we start a trial of something unknown that hasn't been proven to be help in this situation at all. It blows my mind.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

He's just experimenting with people to make money.

SPEAKER_03 54:23

And then to kick someone out of the hospital who was inpatient because of suicidal ideation because he refused to sign up for this investig investigational trial and then he goes and and completes suicide. It's like it's disgusting to me.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

It's horrific horrific yeah yeah great job covering this case holy smokes also this has nothing to do with the case but I was like oh that sounds so uh weird but cool that when you say like WCCO because it's like I know WCCO.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

You know we always say like these random letters of news stations from all these other and it doesn't like hit the same but when you're like WCCO I'm like oh my goodness so Minnesota's under the spotlight right now for this because I I so I found this case by accident thinking it was the case that of the University Minnesota psychiatrists that my friend worked with and she's like no and the guy she's talking about is absolutely a a shit show as well so we're gonna we're gonna have to maybe do a whole uh Minnesota sideshow sorry Minnesota but like what the heck and is that a reflection of psychiatry and not just psychiatry but what's happening with these drug trials in general across the nation just because Minnesota's a more transparent than everybody else I don't know yeah just think that's honestly so scary because of how transparent Minnesota is and this shiz is happening what's happening where they're not transparent I don't want to know yikes it's enough to make you want to grind your teeth at night Cheeky mouth cards yeah go for it go for it girl I can do Cheeky sure Cheeky mouth cards for grinding your teeth get cheeky.com stop grinding and clenching with custom nightcards from Cheeky at a fraction of the cost of going to a dentist it's easy it's affordable we've talked about it you know what smile sleep repeat Cheeky offers affordable custom nightguards that are delivered to your doorstep they send this easy to use impression kit that you take and capture your bite from the comfort of your own home and it ensures a dentist quality nightguard that is tailored to your teeth.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Cheeky nightguards protect teeth from grinding by absorbing the forces of grinding preventing headaches, jaw pain and chipped teeth while promoting healthier gums and a

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SPEAKER_00 57:02

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Medical Mishap Stripper Pole Toenail

SPEAKER_00 58:52

TikTok instead of getting out of bed on weekend mornings etc. I will say yeah I will say having a therapy appointment each week was the one thing that helped me take control of my life shout out to all mental health workers out there you are indispensable and for anyone who's ever or I'm sorry never tried therapy I urge you try it it's like a weekly massage for your brain I love that you said that because that's such a good way to put it we love a therapist. Yes honestly I think the world'd be a happier place if everyone just had a therapist I'm sorry this is totally me talking this is not the writer I'm just saying quick like my therapist says we're all in therapy because we need to learn how to handle the people that should be in therapy oh I love that that's so true. Oh my goodness okay back to the writer who also says anywho here I am busy making all these goals to help me get back on track and my therapist asked me what I was doing that brought me joy. I took a step back and thought about it. Counting calories? Nope trying to make it to 10,000 steps on my activity trackers? Nah eating raw vegetables instead of leftover pizza? Definitely not my therapist challenged me to think about how I can reach some of my goals in a way that brings me joy and fills my cup. One day I was watching America's Got Talent AGT and I saw a pole dancing routine that was so beautiful strong and expressive that I was practically in tears. That's when I came up with my brilliant plan. I love to dance and I have spent many of my formative years devoted to dance classes. I also wanted to get out and meet people and feel good about how I look so I bought a dance pole had that sucker installed right in my living room I put on my favorite playlist on Spotify and grabbed onto that pole flinging my legs out like I'd seen on TV enter the mishap. Unfortunately what I didn't know was that the pole itself also moves around in a circle so my enthusiastic kick sent me flying at supersonic speed around the pole at which point my big toe ow ow ow caught too close to the cabinet and ripped oh god ripped oh god ripped my entire nail off yep my big toenail off clean my reaction is because I've actually lost part of my toenail before you guys I really hurt so bad. So painful it's so bad. It's so bad. So the writer says I can't even tell you how painful it was baby I know I don't know because mine was only part I can't imagine the whole thing I'm literally squeezing my toe right now. It should have been in the trigger warnings probably yeah yeah I ended up having to call my parents to take me to the ER because my friends were out of town which meant I had to try and explain to my ultra conservative parents how I ripped the nail off my toe and why there was a stripper pole in the middle of my living room with a blood spatter around it. It was quite a scene. Anywho all is well now and the poll and I have been getting along without any further injuries once I move the furniture out a safe distance of course hope you enjoyed that and thanks for reading on the pod stay safe and stay suspicious of angry filing cabinets.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

Love anonymous anonymous triple X because you got a pole just kidding it's for hugs oh my gosh I'm I'm clenching my toes as well I can't imagine the pole you know what even when you even when you stub your toe how often it is or you get an grown toenail can't imagine ripping it off and then having to call your parents and be like yeah never mind what this pole is doing in the middle of my living room never mind this pole get me to the lawn did you know the pole actually turns on back oh man this has been great but what can our listeners expect to hear next week Amanda next week we are talking about a guy who we'll just say basically has a embellished resume.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

Oh okay and like when you're a dishwasher and you say you're a sanitary technician pro worse than that not just changing to fancier words just mostly doesn't actually have the qualifications for what we're doing which involves transplanting things into people's bodies

Next Week Teaser And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

no and saying it will cure them oh my god Amanda why are there so many of these horrific individuals in life in medicine? That's why we're doing this podcast well I can't wait I can't wait yeah it's gonna be a doozy so don't miss us next week guys follow or subscribe to Doctoring the Truth wherever sorry you enjoy podcasts for stories that shock intrigue and educate y'all I'm so sorry it's 805 p.m your lady is old trust after all it's like follow us yon so exciting because I'm so much more exciting on in and social media than real life you guys if you've listened this far trust us after all trust is a delicate thing just text us please God text us on our website please please please God we need friends you can text us directly on our website at doctrine the truth at busbrough.com email us your own story ideas medical mishaps and comments at Doctorathegmail be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctor the Truth Podcast and Facebook at Doctor in the Truth we're on TikTok at Doctor in the Truth and at oddpod don't forget to download rate and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then stay safe drink strong coffee company and stay suspicious holy smokes goodbye