GW Psychiatric Treatment: Time Period after Complaint to DC Medical Board

During the period early October 1992 to the end of June 1994, I was in psychotherapy with a psychiatry resident, Suzanne M. Pitts, MD, at the George Washington University Medical Center (GW) in Washington, DC.   In late August 1993, Dr. Pitts suggested to me that we have a conference call with my sister. Dr. Pitts and I would speak to my sister in New Jersey via speaker phone in Dr. Pitts' office. Dr. Pitts was primarily interested in prescribing me the antipsychotic medication, Haldol.

On August 26, 1993 Dr. Pitts gave me a document she hand wrote that was essentially a proposed script for the conference call with my sister regarding the proposed script, namely, the Haldol prescription.

I reacted with anger on August 26, 1993 to Dr. Pitts' behavior that encompassed the recommendation that I take Haldol, the proposed conference call with my sister, and what I registered as the depersonalized quality of her handing me several pages of handwritten notes for a scripted conversation with my sister.

I demanded that GW administer psychological testing that would disclose the true nature of my disorder and I demanded that GW provide a second initial assessment.

Dr. Pitts responded by going to her desk and writing out the following note on 8 1/2 x 11" yellow, lined paper with the heading "THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER."

The note reads:

To request psychological testing and to arrange fee payment or waiver call Dr. Jenkins 994-4072.

To request an assessment you may call 994-4072 and ask for appointment for initial assessment.  There is a non-waivable fee of $85.00.

[handwritten note by me:] 8/26/93 GF

A second handwritten writing!  I believe, in retrospect, that Dr. Pitts' action of putting her statements in writing (both the above statement as well as the script for the conference call with my sister) reflected defensiveness (both psychological and legal) about a complaint I had filed with the D.C. Medical Board dated August 20, 1993 that named Dr. Pitts among a list of treating psychiatrists who, I believed, had divulged confidential mental health information about me (since January 1990) to my former employer, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.  I continue to believe that GW divulged mental health information in violation of the D.C. Mental Health Act of 1978.  See Brief of Appellee, Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998) (appellant believed Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. [GW Clinical Professor of Psychiatry] had divulged confidential mental health information to Akin Gump during appellant's employment).

GW eventually administered psychological testing  to me in May 1994 for a minimal fee to allow a psychology intern to complete her training.