Twist As Navy Veteran Sues Because VA Diagnosed Him?

$35 million lawsuit: VA mental health misdiagnosis cost KC airline pilot his job

Kansas City Star

Tony Rizzo

September 19, 2017

A Kansas City man has filed suit alleging that he lost his job as an airline pilot after Veterans Affairs doctors misdiagnosed him with bipolar disorder.

William Royster is seeking $35 million in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.

It is a refiling of a previous suit that Royster voluntarily dismissed last September.

Royster is a former U.S. Navy pilot who was injured in 1996 when his plane was shot down by a Japanese navy ship during a training exercise.

But in 2013, after a new psychiatrist took over his case and undertook a thorough review and conducted additional testing, the doctor determined that Royster should never have been diagnosed with the disorder.
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Grounded Pilot Sues VA After 10 Years Medicated For What He Did Not Have

Former Navy Pilot Sues US Government over Bipolar Diagnosis
Associated Press
by Bill Draper
Oct 06, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A former Navy pilot has filed a $35 million lawsuit against the federal government alleging that a Veterans Affairs doctor misdiagnosed him with a mental illness that caused him to lose his ability to fly commercial airplanes and be wrongly treated for the disorder for a decade.

William Royster, 53, of Kansas City, said in the lawsuit filed Friday that a doctor at the local VA medical center diagnosed him with bipolar disorder in April 2004 and said he could not work in any capacity. The doctor also said the condition was permanent, he contends.

After he had been treated and medicated for more than 10 years for the disorder, Royster said a different psychiatrist at the medical center told him last November that he was not bipolar.

"From the review of the records, he (Mr. Royster) never had any manic symptoms and he never met the criteria for the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. ... Thus in my professional opinion, I do not believe that Mr. Royster has a diagnosis of bipolar disorder," Dr. Shreeja Kumar wrote on Nov. 18.

Royster was flying a fighter jet on a training mission associated with Desert Storm on June 4, 1996, when he was shot down, the lawsuit says. He was injured when he ejected from the jet and honorably discharged from the Navy that November.
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Catherine Zeta-Jones Was 'Outed' in Bipolar Fight

The National Enquirer has done something no one else ever could, or would. They just told the rest of the population they have no right to privacy at the same time they turned Jones into a shining example of getting help is nothing to be ashamed of. She is the one who stood there after her private life was taken away and then held her head up high talking about mental illness. The only shame here belongs to the National Enquirer.

Michael Douglas Says Catherine Zeta-Jones Was 'Outed' in Bipolar Fight

By Rob Shuter

A raspy-voiced Michael Douglas is speaking out about Catherine Zeta-Jones' battle with bipolar II disorder, telling Oprah Winfrey in an interview airing Tuesday that his actress wife's private struggle with depression was cruelly "outed" by the media.

"I must say, Catherine's being quite open about it because she was outed, you know," he said. "She went to go get some help and some other patient probably in there said, 'Hey, you won't believe who's in here now.' And, so, once that happens, I think she felt [it] best to kind of get out the story."

He is referring to the fact that the National Enquirer first reported that Zeta-Jones was in a mental health facility, which then prompted a statement from the actress hours later.

Michael told the talk show queen why she was reluctant at first to talk about her problems.

"My oldest son is in federal prison, my ex-wife is suing me, and I got cancer. It's kind of hard for the wife to say, 'I'm depressed,'" Michael tells Oprah.

Catherine spent a total of five days in a mental health clinic to get help, leading Michael to tell PEOPLE magazine, "It takes a lot of courage to seek help and I am proud of Catherine for doing something positive about her situation. It's onwards and upwards for us."
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Catherine Zeta-Jones Was 'Outed' in Bipolar Fight

Bipolar, substance abuse linked to suicide risk in vets

I have a huge problem with this report. If you look up symptoms of PTSD, a psychologist can find bipolar along with a lot of other mental illnesses including addiction itself when it very well could be self-medicating instead of addiction. It all depends on what they are looking for based on what they have studied. They need to be a trauma expert before they even think of diagnosing a PTSD-trauma survivor. Average citizens with no exposure to trauma have bipolar but there is only one way to get PTSD and is from a traumatic event.

Bipolar, substance abuse linked to suicide risk in vets

Bipolar disorder and substance abuse are the most common psychiatric disorders linked to suicide in veterans, according to a new study.

The study looked at the medical records of more than 7,000 vets who took their own lives, and found that male veterans with bipolar disorder were about 3-times more likely to commit suicide; while female bipolar vets had a sixfold increase.

"Approximately 25 percent of veterans are diagnosed with at least one psychiatric condition," said Mark Ilger, a psychologist at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the lead study author. "We wanted to see who might be at the greatest risk of committing suicide."

Substance abuse, which includes both drug and alcohol use, correlated with a twofold increase in suicide risk for men, and a sixfold increase in women.

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http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/01/bipolar-substance-abuse-linked-to-suicide-risk-in-soldiers/

Some Conditions Misdiagnosed as Bipolar Disorder, like PTSD

I'm shaking my head in amazement right now. How many times have I written that too often doctors get it wrong because PTSD can look like a lot of other things it isn't? How many times have they gotten it wrong because it was easy to find what they were looking for instead of really listening to the patient they just met and what else was going on in their life to diagnose them right?

PTSD comes after trauma and begins from that. There is no other way to have PTSD. It is an emotional wound setting off all kinds of other changes in the way people think, live, feel and deal with life but the long, long list of symptoms can look like a lot of other mental illnesses.

Usually when I do a post about this, I get emails coming in telling me I'm an idiot, reminding me that I'm not a doctor (as if I needed to be reminded of that) and they knew more than I did. The problem is, they never stopped to figure out where I was getting all my facts from during all these years. I read the real experts on PTSD and learned from the PTSD veterans themselves, plus living with my own husband. So thank you very much Brown University for this vindication!

Some Conditions Misdiagnosed as Bipolar Disorder
By Amy Norton
August 13, 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study published last year suggested that bipolar disorder may be over diagnosed in people seeking mental health care. Now new findings shed light on which disorders many of these patients actually have.

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, involves dramatic swings in mood -- ranging from debilitating depression to euphoric recklessness.

In the original 2008 study, researchers at Brown University School of Medicine found that of 145 adults who said they had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, 82 (57 percent) turned out not to have the condition when given a comprehensive diagnostic interview.

In this latest study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the researchers used similar standardized interviews to find out which disorders those 82 patients might have.

Overall, they found, nearly half had major depression, while borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety and social phobia were each diagnosed in roughly one-quarter to one-third.

In addition, he told Reuters Health in an email, over diagnosis means some patients are likely not getting the appropriate care for the problems they do have.

Bipolar disorder shares certain characteristics with some other psychiatric conditions. Borderline personality disorder, for instance, is marked by unstable mood, impulsive behavior and problems maintaining relationships with other people.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=8322028

Clearwater Florida "Taliban Tom" murder suicide

Police: Man acted erratically before killing family, self
By Times Staff Writer
Published Wednesday, April 2, 2008 3:10 PM


CLEARWATER — In the days after Oliver Thomas Bernsdorff murdered his family, acquaintances said they were stunned that a man who talked about how much he loved his children could shoot them in cold blood.

But Clearwater police investigative records released today show that Bernsdorff, 36, showed signs of increasingly erratic behavior in the weeks and days leading up to the Dec. 14 shootings:

• Bernsdorff, a GED teacher for Pinellas County schools for 13 years, was disliked by his coworkers and apparently hated women, according to a school district employee interviewed by police. In the last weeks of his life, Bernsdorff began dressing all in black, sometimes wearing robes and head wrappings. That prompted coworkers to start referring to him as "Taliban Tom."

• Bernsdorff dated a woman he met online during the final 2 1/2 to 3 months of his life. After an incident where he kicked his ex-wife while picking up the children from a visitation, he became paranoid that police would come for him, according to the girlfriend, Melissa Redding. At one point, he also told her that he had two options: to take the children and flee the country, or to kill them, his ex-wife, her new girlfriend and himself. Then, three days before the shooting, he seemed to have had a breakthrough and seemed calm and happy.

• The day Bernsdorff picked up the 9mm semiautomatic pistol used in the murders, he declined the pawn shop owner's offer of a gun lock and pamphlet on gun safety and children, leaving them both on the counter.

•Bernsdorff told one of his co-workers, Nancy Hopp, that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder about a year ago. A doctor put him on medication, but Bernsdorff didn't like the way it made him feel and stopped taking it after three weeks, she said.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article440759.ece

also
Bernsdorff's twisted letter plots family's murders

Fort Carson Soldier Pulled Out Of Hospital To Redeploy

Fort Carson Forcibly Removed Soldier from Mental Hospital and Deployed Him to Iraq War

Erin Emery


Denver Post

Feb 10, 2008

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, was outraged. "If he's an inpatient in a hospital, they should have never taken him out. The chain of command needs to be held accountable for this. Washington needs to get involved at the Pentagon to make sure this doesn't happen again. "First, we had the planeload of wounded, injured and ill being forced back to the war zone. And now we have soldiers forcibly removed from mental hospitals. The level of outrage is off the Richter scale."

Ill GI says he was deployed from hospital

Februray 10, 2008 - A Fort Carson soldier who says he was in treatment at Cedar Springs Hospital for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse was released early and ordered to deploy to the Middle East with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

The 28-year-old specialist spent 31 days in Kuwait and was returned to Fort Carson on Dec. 31 after health care professionals in Kuwait concurred that his symptoms met criteria for bipolar disorder and "some paranoia and possible homicidal tendencies," according to e-mails obtained by The Denver Post.

The soldier, who asked not to be identified because of the stigma surrounding mental illness and because he will seek employment when he leaves the Army, said he checked himself into Cedar Springs on Nov. 9 or Nov. 10 after he attempted suicide while under the influence of alcohol. He said his treatment was supposed to end Dec. 10 but his commanding officers showed up at the hospital Nov. 29 and ordered him to leave.

"I was pulled out to deploy," said the soldier, who has three years in the Army and has served a tour in Iraq.

Soldiers from Fort Carson and across the country have complained they were sent to combat zones despite medical conditions that should have prevented their deployment.

Late last year, Fort Carson said it sent 79 soldiers who were considered medical "no-gos" overseas. Officials said the soldiers were placed in light-duty jobs and are receiving treatment there. So far, at least six soldiers have been returned.
go here for the rest
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9321

When Maj. Gen. Mark Graham took over command of Fort Carson, I had high hopes the problems at Carson would addressed and corrected. With this, those hopes are gone. I wanted to see what Graham had to say about all of this since he stated he would correct the problems at Carson. I found this.

From CBS

AP) Seventy-nine injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks, but most were assigned to light-duty jobs within limits set by doctors, two Army leaders said. The Denver Post, quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, reported that troops had been deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still receiving medical treatment for various conditions.

Fort Carson's top general Maj. Gen. Mark Graham said most of the 79 soldiers remain in Iraq, while about a dozen are in Kuwait, the newspaper reported in Friday editions. A few returned to the United States because of inadequate rehabilitation available in theater, Graham said. Graham said he has asked Fort Carson's inspector general to investigate whether proper procedures were followed in sending the soldiers into war zones. Congressional investigators also are reviewing allegations that medically unfit soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to shore up lagging troop numbers.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/19/national/main3731718.shtml

A fraction of hope returned with this but it is shaky at best. Wouldn't Graham have given orders when he took over Carson to make sure this kind of thing would never even be considered? Wouldn't Graham have enforced the attitude the wounded are wounded and should be treated accordingly? How could he leave open to interpretation pulling a soldier out of the hospital to redeploy them when they were already wounded? Graham, Fort Carson and the DOD have a lot to answer for. This is disgusting and disgraceful.

The other issue is are they now diagnosing soldiers with bipolar disorder instead of PTSD?