The lead singer of the Four Tops said a Detroit-area hospital restrained him and ordered a psychological exam after refusing to believe that he was part of the Motown music group.
Alexander Morris, who is Black, filed a lawsuit Monday against Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Warren, alleging racial discrimination and other misconduct during an April 2023 visit for chest pain and breathing problems.
Hospital staff “wrongfully assumed he was mentally ill when he revealed his identity as a celebrity figure,” the lawsuit says.
Morris is not an original member, but he joined the group in 2019.
The lawsuit says a nurse finally believed Morris was in the Four Tops and the psychological exam was canceled.
The hospital offered a $25 gift card as an apology, but Morris refused to accept it, the lawsuit says.
The hospital offered a $25 gift card as an apology
The cherry on top.
That’s such an insulting concession. I bet it’s only good for use in the hospital gift shop or cafeteria.
Good for $25 off any elective procedure costing twenty thousand dollars or more!
The thing about suing for damages, which is what I assume hell sue for, is that your payout is based on their value. And hospitals are “worth nothing” on paper. In the US.
So… He should probably take it.
I mean I’m kidding, he can probably afford a good lawyer and get something done here. But, you or me? Take that shit.
The funniest part of this story is learning that American hospitals have gift cards. What a joke of a healthcare system.
Ya know, I hadn’t even thought of that until I read your comment. Because there’s gift cards for damn near everything. But a ‘gift card’ for a hospital… That is weird.
The worst part is a $25 gift card wouldn’t even cover a lot of people’s co-pays.
Yeah. They really gotta get on those punch cards. 10 surgeries and the next one is free.
What a scam. Show me 10 surgeries on a person still alive. I worry that’s reeeeally rare.
They were going to put him in a mental hospital and the best they can do to say sorry is a $25 gift card…
They ordered an exam, but they cancelled it before it was given.
Their defense could be to describe what behavior the singer had besides stating he was one of the Four Tops that might give them concern about his mental health.
They cancelled the exam after figuring out that he actually was, so presumably it was a significant part of the decision.
That feels like a $1 inheritance. Was the hospital trying to get the worst PR angle possible?
It is.
If he accepted it, he’d no longer have an argument with a strong foundation. He could still sue, but a lawyer could argue they already made it right.
Exactly the same logic as a 1$ inheritance, it shows that this was dealt with, so the law doesnt have to deal with it again.
The hospital offered a $25 gift card as an apology, but Morris refused to accept it, the lawsuit says.
Americans may pay significantly more for healthcare, but at least the quality of care is terrible.
I argued like a couple having a fight with a psychiatrist about me being autistic when I was hospitalized once. We had a literal antagonized fight over me being autistic in front of two other doctors. She raised her voice at and wouldn’t believe me even though I told her I had been diagnosed by a psychologist that administered the ADOS, have seen said psychologist for months, my friends that are psychologists are confident I’m autistic, and that I was in special ed classes since 4th grade. I was seeking absolutely nothing related to it; I just happened to mention it in passing when I said I didn’t like sleeping at the hospital and missed my bed.
Warning: sarcastic vent session
Tap for spoiler
This became the psychiatrist’s last stand against Big Autism. She wasn’t going to let a patient undermine her absolute authority by them giving her information that she needed to have a thorough understanding of the case. Who do I think I am to know and have an opinion about my entire life and well-being?? As soon as I got home, I threw her prescription in the trash.
I worry about all the other vulnerable patients that she treats and dont have the mental strength to stand up to her, just getting drugged up for whatever would validate her need for control over others.
Bonus: When I was receiving the discharge brief, she raised her voice at and put down a nurse that asked a question about my discharge instructions. Everyone’s faces in the room were straight blank like this 😐. I guess they were used to her abuse.
I had a ER guy fight me on me knowing what kidneys are, and if I’m having kidney pain or not. I have really bad memory loss so I was all kinds of flustered, eventually I remember that I didn’t diagnose myself, a doctor did! A doctor told me it was kidney pain. That fucking weasel wouldn’t listen to me for anything. Then he eventually agreed after seeing xrays, sent me to a kidney specialist, and she looked at both doctors diagnosis and said ‘‘these guys are idiots… see the L the xray tech typed in next to your kidney with the dark spot, yeah that’s the Left kidney, your pain is behind your right kidney, The left has never hurt, correct?’’ She was correct. Turns out I had referred pain from a spinal issue. She figured it out because I was sitting weird, and she was like, why do you sit like that? ‘‘Oh, the pain goes away when I sit like this, but it comes back when I stand up’’. ‘‘yeah that’s a spinal issue, kidney pain doesn’t present that way at all.’’ So basically, some doctors suck at bedside manner AND being a doctor.
A large portion of medical practicioners are absolutely fucking insane. It’s no wonder people have a massive distrust of healthcare. How is it possible that medical research and medical practice have such vastly different kinds of people in them?
It’s scary when you realize that a medical degree is just a degree like any other, and that a lot of those people went through college the same way as any other person, probably not paying attention 90% of the time, and cheating on most of their assignments… your likelihood of having a dysfunctional doctor is about the same as your likelihood of having a dysfunctional tech support specialist.
Tbh I’ve had more issues with male physicians than female (a couple with female, dozens with male), ie: pulled my ACL off the bone at work but was told that women don’t hurt themselves badly, so all ok. Took them 6 months to give me a scope and clean the mess in my knee, then another 2 months before I got the ACL replaced (by an utter fucking idiot who put it in the wrong position).
It failed 14 months later (same job), took 8 months to get an MRI, & waited 16 months for a second replacement.
Took seeing multiple different physicians (all male) and 20 yrs before they finally MRI’d my torn rotator cuff (same job) and it finally got fixed 2 years ago … when I was in my early-mid 60s.
3 years ago a newish-to-me gyno didn’t bother doing an ultrasound and found out mid-surgery (for uterine polyps) that my uterus is tipped completely upside down towards my tailbone. I had 4 nurses holding my hands trying to talk me through that pain, and when it was done and I was walking down the hallway, the gyno was running after me apologizing.
Every time it was a male Dr. whose arrogance trumped patient care.
Every. Fucking. Time.
I fucking hate psychiatrists. I’ve seen plenty and never met a good one.
The problem with them is that they’re not educated on the subject they’re supposed to act as experts on. A psychologist is a scientist who becomes a medical professional. But a psychiatrist is a general practitioner who becomes a brain professional. They’re not qualified and they don’t know what they’re talking about. A psychologist knows about the stages of development, the mechanisms of trauma, the structure of the brain, etc. A psychiatrist knows how to prescribe antibiotics and start an IV. It’s not a transferable skillset! They are given very little actually relevant education, and they are never taught how to use the scientific method. Every brain is different and understanding a patient’s mind is always a scientific problem. You don’t learn how to do that in medical school.
I disagree. Generally speaking, psychologists aren’t competent either. Psychiatrists at least know about the human body, its interactions, and psychopathology in depth. Psychologists study the things you mentioned, but many fail to study the biological parts and how deep psychopathologies can go.
Therefore, I’ve encountered many psychologists who think that all problems are caused by the environment, by inner (often cognitive) processes, etc. They fail to understand severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and regularly make one of two mistakes (if not both in different contexts): downplay the severity of psychosis and mania/hypomania or think the mildest symptom is psychosis or mania/hypomania.
Also, many psychologists I’ve known and seen lean into the antipsychiatry movement. This may not be a problem when treating, say, mild to moderate depressions of a certain reactive nature. They might advise not to take medication and, indeed, medication may not be necessary for these cases. But to do the same for endogenous recurrent depressions and, again, severe mental disorders is borderline clinical negligence.
Finally and in the same vein, many psychologists do not understand how dependent on the physiological are phenomena such as behavior and beliefs. They often picture our mental experience as mostly free, perhaps influenced by many factors (e.g., psychoanalysis), yet ultimately driven by ourselves. I disagree. I disagree not only because there are many scientific observations to the contrary, but because my own experience has been ever-changing by the silliest of things, like medication for physical illnesses, food, weather conditions, etc. Anecdote incoming: >!Traits that psychologists would try to explain away, treat in talk therapy, and solidify as part of my personality were mere consequences of the physiological and went away immediately after I stopped the causes. The average psychiatrist would find this obvious, while psychologists were often surprised.!<
If I may add, both psychiatrists and psychologists face a profound ignorance about the things they study. Psychology has tried to explain them, and in this effort it has created dozens of different and incompatible schools of thought (e.g., psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitivism, etc.). Psychiatrists are also at a loss in the definitive hows, and I should add there’s also dense theory behind it (it did not stop with Emil Kraeplin or Karl Jaspers). If you ask me, I wouldn’t consider one more scientific than the other just because one created more paradigms/theories; if anything, remaining observant and pragmatic sounds to me more scientific (in both disciplines), but that’s a whole new conversation…
