 I am often asked, which group of narcissists is the most dangerous by far? Politicians? No, I say. Politicians have to work in coalitions with allies. Their behavior is constrained by multiple factors within the state, within the party, within their constituencies, and this applies even to the most extreme and egregious dictator. So, how about YouTube influencers who spread misinformation and nonsense online? Yeah, they cause damage, definitely. What they are doing is wrong. They are charlatans and corner artists, but they are not as dangerous as the third group, which I consider to be the most dangerous narcissist, medical doctors and physicians. My name is Sam Vaknin. I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, a former visiting professor of psychology and currently on the faculty of C.U.P.S. and today we are going to discuss doctors. I said that politicians are constrained by coalitions of allies. They are also subject to scrutiny and that applies even to extreme dictators such as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. So, politicians are constrained. Medical doctors are not. This is a mafia, cause an ostra. No medical doctor would testify against another medical doctor. Malfeasance, malpractice, and horrible egregious mistakes. Yatrogenic diseases, they are all swept under the proverbial carpet. There are no snitches. There are no whistleblowers in this fortress of self-righteousness and sanctimoniousness. Sanctimony is just one element in the composition and the constitution of the typical medical doctor or physician. Physician is a specialty doctor, just to clarify. Let's start with the fact. Narcissists and psychopaths are over-represented dramatically in the medical professions, about five times more than in the general population. For example, the number of psychopaths among medical surgeons is anywhere between six and ten times higher than in the general population. The prevalence of cluster B personality disorders and the incidence of cluster B personality disorders in the medical professions, and I'm talking about all medical professions, that includes dentists, that includes psychiatrists, that includes surgeons, and so on and so forth, are very high. And as the prevalence and incidence of cluster B personality disorders is rising in the general population, it is of course rising and exploding among the medical professions. This is becoming a major threat. A major threat. Why is that? Because the typical narcissistic doctor, or doctor who is a narcissist, suffers from a series of cognitive distortions and behavioral dysfunctions that render him or her unable to provide service to the patient. And in the case of service to the patient in medicine, we are talking often about life and death decisions. So the doctor's narcissism hinders, obstructs, impedes and undermines the doctor's ability to treat the patient appropriately with boundaries, with the application of bleeding edge information and knowledge and with humility that is required. Because to be a good doctor, you need to be humble. Humble in front of this magic of the human body, this contraption, this device that's more complex than the universe itself. Humble in front of your patient who knows our body much better than you would ever, ever be able to. And humble in realizing the limitations of your own discipline. The fact that medicine is a work in progress and you're not God, and you're not even God-like. You're just a student, a lifelong student. Doctors, medical doctors and physicians that lack this humility are bad doctors. They are failing physicians. They're failing not only themselves, but they're failing first and foremost their patients. Start with the fact that narcissistic doctors and physicians consider themselves infallible. They're always right. They never make mistakes. You are always wrong. Their colleagues are always wrong. Everyone is always wrong. They always get it right. This infallibility, which used to be reserved only to the Pope, is a major problem in medicine. In medicine, you must accept that you are fallible, that you are human. And errors are human, making mistakes defines being human. Trial and error. So if you refuse to acknowledge your ability or your propensity or your capacity to make mistakes, to get it wrong, then you never learn. Not only do you never learn, but you apply the wrong diagnostic procedures and the wrong treatment modalities to your patient, ending up making your patient's life and health much worse. How many doctors, medical doctors and physicians and psychiatrists and so on have you come across who have admitted to you openly, I made a mistake. I got it wrong. How many? I think I've come across one and I'm 63 years old. And I've doubled in medicine and I've moved in medical circles for many decades. One. One in 14 countries. The next thing is narcissistic doctors, medical doctors, like all narcissists, confabulate. When they have a memory gap, when they fail to recall something, when they don't know something, and so on and so forth, they simply invent on the fly. They come up with a story, with a narrative, with a concoction, with a piece of fiction, and they imbue it with the power of a fact, an indisputable fact. You cannot challenge this confabulation. You cannot observe it critically, cannot analyze it, not allow it. The doctor's confabulation is the word of God handed down to Moses on the Mount of Sinai. Whereas the typical narcissist's confabulation is open to challenge and usually easily undermined, the medical doctor's confabulation is a double-edged sword as far as the patient is concerned. Because if the patient were to challenge the confabulation, that would create bad blood between the patient and the doctor. There is a power as asymmetry between patients and doctors. Doctors, medical doctors, can harm the patients. Patients can rarely harm the doctor unless they resort to violence, in which case they get arrested. So a doctor's confabulation is a major problem because it obscures the truth and leads both the doctor and his patient or her patient down the garden path in a trajectory that is further from health than before and ends usually in a calamity. Doctors, medical doctors and physicians never admit to ignorance. Many of them, not all but many of them, are resistant to learning. And I'm not talking about learning from textbooks, learning from the internet, learning from scholarly publications and learning from other colleagues. I'm not talking about this. I'm talking about learning from life, learning from patients, learning from one's own mistakes, having first acknowledged them. The process of learning involves humility, humbleness, eating humble pie. The process of learning is admitting that you are not perfect and that the sources of learning are everywhere and that you should remain attuned and open-minded. And many, many doctors are incapable of doing this. They're resistant to learning. They are stuck in their old rut and old ways and when they are ignorant of something they would just lie. Simply, they would invent some nonsense and they would insist it's accurate and correct. This is very difficult to do in the age of the internet but it's still a very, very dominant behavior among doctors, medical doctors. And a very typical, narcissistic defense. The narcissist is omniscient, all-knowing. Narciss doesn't need to learn anything. The narcissist is the rarefication of all knowledge. The narcissist is the embodiment of all wisdom. Narciss is God. And so the narcissist is never ignorant. The narcissist confabulations, the narcissist inventions, the narcissist hypotheses, they're as good as facts and you should never challenge it. Consequently, many medical doctors never seek advice and never even bother to gather information. Many of them never read articles, never go online, never participate in forums, never attend conferences, never engage in continued education and never, ever, ever admit to a colleague, let alone a patient, that they need help, that they require some tips, some direction, some guidance or heaven for friend, some mentoring. This is hubris, this is haughtiness and this is an outcome of the cognitive distortion known as grandiosity because I'm divine, because I'm a deity, my knowledge is perfect and I'm able to come up with all the advice and all the strategies and all the coping mechanisms necessary. I don't need anyone. I'm utterly self-sufficient and self-contained. When your profession is about dealing with life and death, when you truly have god-like powers at your fingertips, when your decisions could mean the difference between survival and extinction, it's easy to believe that you're god or that you're godlike. There is no psychodynamic distinction, no psychological difference between serial killers and medical doctors. They both can take life away. Of course, medical doctors are motivated by healing. They want to heal. They want to give life, but they want to give life for the very same psychological reason that the serial killer wants to take life. They want to feel like they are gods, like they are divinities, like they are some kind of ancient primitive deities and they expect human sacrifice. They expect you to sacrifice your dignity, your self-respect, your critical thinking. They expect you to suspend your individuality when you cross the threshold into their clinic or office. They're in charge the way parents are and you're being infantilized and regressed. As an infant, you have no right to dispute the doctor's judgment, to ask questions, to demand explanations, to search for information on your own. You have no right to do any of these things. And if you do, you're a bad patient and you ought to be penalized aggressively or passive-aggressively. Many doctors, therefore, medical doctors and physicians, and I repeat, this includes psychiatrists, are hyper-vigilant. They're constantly scanning for insults and slides and criticism. Everything you say to them is misperceived as a challenge to their authority, as the undermining of their supremacy, as a form of shaming them and humiliating them. They become defensive and they become aggressive. Or if they are covert narcissists, they become passive-aggressive, which is even much worse. Numerous conflicts erupt in offices and clinics all over the world because of the narcissism and the grandiosity and the hyper-vigilance of medical doctors and physicians. Exactly like other narcissists in other professions, they are hell-bent on preserving and maintaining their self-image and self-perception as perfect, immaculate, untouchable, immune, godlike. And any hint that there may not be any of these things is considered to be bad taste, a declaration of war, casus belli, they're very belligerent, many, many doctors, are very, very belligerent and vindictive. Vindictive doctors is a pandemic. It's a pandemic as the number of narcissistic doctors increases in line with the increase of narcissism in the general population. We are seeing rising rates of vindictiveness. Vindictiveness need not be conscious. Vindictiveness need not be premeditated or intentional. It could be passive-aggressive. It could be unconscious, but it is when the doctor gives suboptimal treatment to the patient, when the doctor subjects the patient to unnecessary diagnostic tests and unnecessary treatment. It's a way of getting back at the patient for having dared to display personal autonomy, critical thinking, independence, which doctors hate absolutely detest because doctors, medical doctors and physicians, and here I'm talking about like 99% of them are patronizing. They are condescending. They have a God complex. Their attitude to patients is diminishing and degrading. The patient is a supplicant, a beggar, and beggars cannot be choosers. Of course, they are not allowed to challenge or to doubt their benefactors, the medical doctors. Medical doctors and physicians regard every query however innocuous, however benign, however tangential, every query as narcissistic injury, as a direct confrontation, as a challenge to authority, and they declare themselves infallible owing to their authority. This is known as a fallacy. It's a logical fallacy. You should never take something for granted because it emanates or comes from an authority. You should check things. You should verify things. You should do your own research and homework, which I always encourage you to do by the way. That's why I provide literature lists at the end of my, in the description of my videos because you need to do your own studies and form your own opinions. Definitely medical doctors and physicians are more qualified than you are in the technical sense. They know the body better than you do. They have vast repository of information and knowledge structured and otherwise which you could not hope to gain in a single meeting or 10 meetings. You do have to respect their experience, their learning and erudition studies. Absolutely you have to respect all this but this does not mean that you have to suspend any dimension of your personality. This does not mean that you have to negate yourself in some way. You are an interlocutor and an equal partner of your medical doctor or your physician. You have a right to ask time and again until it's 100% clear to you. You have a right to research and challenge the doctor's assertions, some of which invariably and inevitably are dead wrong. Do not hesitate. And if your doctor reacts with indignation, rage, sulking, change your doctor. That's a narcissist. Doctors who perceive themselves as godlike, doctors who regard themselves as immune to the consequences of errors, mistakes, choices, decisions, doctors who believe that their actions would have no personal consequences ever. Doctors who treat you as some kind of infant infantilize you, doctors who disrespect you by refusing to listen to you, refusing to answer your questions. Walk away. Walk away. Find another doctor. Never mind what reputation the doctor you're abandoning has. No amount, remember this rule, no amount of learning and no quantity of experience can outweigh the distortions and the errors that narcissism brings. So narcissism destroys. Narcissism is a counterbalance. Even the most experienced, most erudite, most amazingly informed doctor who is a narcissist is a bad doctor. It's a doctor who would make the wrong decisions based on emotional dysregulation, based on narcissistic injury, based on rage, based on it's a person. Narcissism is a human being or a simulation of a human being who is out of control. This kind of doctor, the narcissistic doctor, the narcissistic physician, cannot control himself, his impulses, his inhibitions, his recklessness, his hatred, his rage, his envy, his... You see what I mean? Narcissism is a wrong doctor for you, regardless of how many letters he has after his name, how many books he has written, how many articles he has published and how many decades he's spent in the profession. Remember, doctors' reputations are fake because doctors cover up for each other, medical doctors cover up for each other. You would never hear about the abysmal failures of narcissistic doctors, about how many people they killed on the operating table, how many people they've maimed with the wrong medication, how many unnecessary diagnostic tests have gone awry, you would never hear about any of this because their colleagues are fending for them, their colleagues are covering up, they're burying the evidence, literally, sometimes. So don't be too impressed with the reputation of medical doctors. It's mostly false, it's mostly fake, it's mostly contrived and in short, it's mostly a confabulation. The doctor's personality is much more important than the doctor's alleged track record. The doctor's alleged knowledge and studies and titles and so on. Personality matters. Medicine is 90% personality and only 10% technique and information and so on so forth. Today, every doctor, every village doctor in the sub-Sahara in Africa is as learned and as qualified as any doctor in Texas or New York or Germany or United. Today, medical knowledge is available to all. It's not a question of knowing things, it's a question of applying what you know, implementing what you've learned. And here, the personality matters because the narcissist is not self-efficacious. The narcissist is so effed up such a problematic personality that is unable actually to translate any asset, any possession, any knowledge, any experience into meaningful actions. Definitely, the narcissist is not interested to help others, to heal others. The narcissist is interested in self-aggrandizement. The narcissistic surgeon operates not in order to heal anyone but in order to accumulate another record or another success that he can flaunt and he can brag about and boast to his colleagues and to his future patients. It's all about the maintenance and sustenance and sustaining of the doctor's grandiosity. So, here maybe is the main issue. A narcissistic doctor is not interested in you. He couldn't care less about your health. Narcissistic doctors is interested in scoring points, in elevating himself or herself, in bragging, in boasting, in showing off. It's not about you're nothing, you're a prop. You're just a prop. Do you want to be a prop to your doctor? Or do you want a real doctor who is compassionate and empathic and understanding and willing to listen and open-minded and caring and warm? A doctor you can trust. Never, ever trust a narcissistic doctor, medical doctor or narcissistic physician. Never, ever trust a narcissistic medical doctor or a narcissistic physician. And just in case you miss the first two times, never, ever trust a narcissistic medical doctor or a narcissistic physician. Remember, we're dealing with mental health issues that are considered by many authorities and scholars, my humble self, or not so humble self included, to be among the worst. I personally think that narcissistic personality disorder is probably the most extreme mental illness after schizophrenia. And in this, I'm joined by giants on whose shoulders I stand, like Otto Kellberg. So, narcissists are defiant. Narcissists are daring at your expense. Narcissists are contumacious. They reject authority. They reject the disregard, treatment protocols. No one will tell them what to do. They have their own way of doing things. They are a law unto themselves. They're going to ignore good practices. They're going to treat you the way they want to, the way they decide, because they are the only authority in the entire universe, and they're going to experiment on you because they're daring. Remember that narcissists are antisocial. Psychopathic narcissists, which are very common in certain medical specialties, such as surgery. Psychopathic narcissists are even criminal. Do you want to deposit your body unconscious under anesthesia in the hands of a criminal, a defiant, antisocial, daring, contumacious criminal? Is this your perception? Is this your idea of taking care of yourself and improving your health? Narcissistic doctors are prone to conspiracism, confirmation bias, superstitions. They're not well here. They're mentally ill. You could be mentally ill and a medical doctor. You could be mentally ill and a physician. You could even be mentally ill and be a famous medical doctor. An authority physician, but you are still mentally ill and with push comes to shove, this kind of doctor, his mental illness takes over. And you can forget all his learning, all his experience, all his publications, all his braggadaccio, all his aura, all his godlike and god complex. You can forget all this. This is a critical moment. His mental illness takes over. Especially if you dared to pretend that you're somehow involved in the process of your own treatment because you should never. He is superior to you. He's god. Who are you? You're nothing. You're prop. Shut up. Narcissistic doctors, medical doctors and physicians objectify you. They make you into an object and they don't hesitate to gaslight you. Gaslight you in with if they are psychopathic. Within a fantasy space, which is essentially cult-like. Narcissistic doctors create cults and you as a patient should belong to this cult. Belonging to the doctors, the medical doctors cult is a precondition for being accepted or received by the doctor. Medical doctor would not see you if you don't kow-tow, if you don't sacrifice, if you don't admire and worship him. It's a fantasy space within which the narcissistic doctors derives his grandiose self-perception from. And psychopathic ones or psychopathic narcissists, malignant narcissists, would gaslight you. They would dispute your perception of reality. They would rewrite history. They would imply that you are crazy. That you are unstable. They would go even as far as introducing a psychiatrist in order to ascertain that you are not crazy. You. And even if you know that this doctor has committed an error, mistreated you, destroyed your health, they would bring colleagues, other colleagues to testify that they've done nothing wrong. And they would bring a psychiatrist to prove to the whole, to the entire world or to the court system that you are really not well in the head. Something is wrong with you. You're a paranoid or something like that. Be careful. It's a system. Medical doctors and physicians operate within mafia-like structures, within systems that are intended to generate plausible deniability and to isolate the practitioners from the adverse outcomes of their wrong decisions, malfeasance, malpractice, catastrophic choices, ignorance. So be very careful. Let me clarify. The majority of medical doctors and physicians you can work with them. They are somehow open to interaction and so on and so forth. But you ought to really be hyper-vigilant. You ought to really, really be careful. What are the solutions? Number one, seek multiple opinions. Did I say two opinions? Second opinion? No. I said multiple. Do not hesitate. Do not trick yourself into believing that a single opinion coming from an authority or a prominent physician is all that you need. Seek multiple opinions. Now, multiple starts with three. Number two, rely on your common sense on your gut instinct and on your intuition. They're often right when it comes to other people. Do not rely on your common sense, gut instinct and intuition when it comes to the medical procedure, when it comes to your treatment, when it comes to your medications. That's all I'm saying. But do rely on them when it comes to choosing a medical practitioner, a clinician. Choose the doctor, choose your medical doctor, choose your physician by relying 100% on the uncanny-value reaction. Do you feel uncomfortable with this doctor? Do you feel that you need to fawn? You need to please him? You need to cater to his psychological needs? You need to walk on actions with your medical doctor? Walk on actions away from his clinic and never see him again. Trust your gut instinct and intuition. Talk to others. Ask them about their experience with this doctor, with this specific doctor that you're contemplating to work with. Ask around. Talk to as many people as you can. Gather impressions, experiences, reviews, criticisms or praise. Be prepared. Next, seek doctors who rely on evidence rather than prejudice or superstition or their own infallibility or their amazing zero-mistake track record. Evidence-based practices. Here's a fact. New discoveries in medicine, even very important ones, take 15 years to filter down, to trickle down to practice. Even the best medical doctors and the most amazing front-line physicians are 15 years behind bleeding-edge current medical knowledge. Period. It's a fact. Don't trust me. Search online. This means that many of the things, many of the treatments, many of the medications that doctors use on you have been already proven long ago to have been wrong or counterproductive or suboptimal. Seek evidence-based practices. Do your homework. Do your research. Confront your doctor. Ask questions. Be polite, but be assertive. Be assertive. Be thorough in your studies and research but when you have come to the point that you feel sure of yourself, that you have reviewed multiple sources online and offline, spoken to people, spoken to other practitioners and experts and so on, and you've reached a point where you are absolutely certain of what you're saying. Do not hesitate. Assertively but not aggressively to confront your medical doctor and physician. Here's a simple fact. Your life often depends on it. The other day I watched a Hungarian movie, wonderful Hungarian movie, titled Semmelweis. Semmelweis was a Hungarian Jewish medical doctor. He worked in Vienna in the middle of the 19th century. At that time, many women were dying a childbirth from an unexplained fever which took over their bodies and destroyed it from head to toe. Semmelweis discovered that the reason for this fever was that doctors were conducting autopsies on dead bodies and then touching the women and of course passing on bacteria and so on from the corpses to the very living pregnant women. But when he tried to introduce his findings, he was persecuted, prosecuted, haunted, attacked, threatened by the entire medical establishment. The hubris, the vanity, the grandiosity, the mafia-like activities, the criminal misconduct, egregious misconduct of all the medical doctors involved in the film are mind-boggling and breathtaking. Not surprisingly, at the age of 46 or 47, he ended his life, he ended up in a mental asylum with a psychosis, a psychotic disorder. He did not survive his ordeal. Semmelweis is not so much about this particular doctor as it is about the flaws of human nature and especially narcissism in the medical establishment. It summarizes neatly albeit lengthily my arguments in this video and I strongly recommend that you rush and hurry to watch this film.