Rush to Judgement in Wrestlers Death
By Tammy Stoner - Today, the physician and friend of Chris Benoit the professional wrestler was released from jail and placed on house arrest at his mother’s home. Do a quick search on the internet, and you will find many supporters of Dr. Astin. There are some patients who state he treated them without insurance, he had great bedside manner, and he was an excellent physician. So how do we explain the categorically positive statements by patients about this physician to an arrest of the physician, leading to jail time, and a closing of his practice?
Dr. Phil Astin is a victim of our apparent need to find blame for that which we do not understand. We have no answers as to why this wrestler murdered his family, so we blame the physician, and friend of the wrestler. We have done it before in our rush to find solutions, find answers, and explain the unexplainable.
Recent memory brings to mind Richard Jewell, the security officer dragged through the mud, and intense investigation because he “identified the Olympic bomb”. Only later we learned it was Eric Rudolph who planted the bomb. For nearly a year, the focus was on Richard Jewell, while we ignored other clues leading elsewhere.
Then we saw it again when Howard Stern was accused of “killing Anna Nicole Smith with drugs”. Again, the death was unexplainable and we rushed to judgment, blaming the closest person to her at the time of death, Howard Stern. Later we learned the autopsy left many unanswered questions.
Then we watched it again with the Duke Lacross players accused of rape, only to learn that the entire story was made up by a mentally ill women, and exacerbated, by a prosecuting attorney seeking to capitalize on the crime to get reelected.
When we don’t understand, we seek to make sense of the unexplainable and we do that by placing blame on somebody, anybody. Today we are blaming the physician for prescribing drugs, however there is no indication the physician prescribed steroids to the wrestler and we don’t know what medication was prescribed on the day of the attack.
Dr. Astin’s office is raided and his records confiscated and the news reports that he was arrested, for over prescribing medication to other patients, unrelated to the wrestler. What in the world is going on here?
I have no idea of whether or not Dr. Astin prescribed an inappropriate medication to the wrestler Chris Benoit, but Dr. Astin does not need to be arrested for doing what he is paid to do, be a doctor. He did not kill the wrestler nor the wrestlers family. He prescribed medication to his patient’s, that’s what a doctor is paid to do.
If we want to place blame perhaps it should rest on the drug manufacturers, the sales representatives selling the drugs to the doctors. Perhaps we should see what the autopsy reveals before we rush to judgment, and learn to accept that we don’t have all of the answers. Sometimes we just don’t know what happened. We don’t know, what we don’t know.
We are putting the cart in front of the horse in this case. We need to slow down, and learn the cause of death before rushing to “explain, what we can’t explain”. It is a tragedy to the American justice system that we continually blame somebody for that which we don’t understand. Get off of the doctors back, and let the facts of the case unfold first. The facts of the case will be revealed soon enough. Wait for them before rushing to judgement.
Tammy Stoner is a licensed clinical social worker and life coach. She provides training and education to health care organizations, and individuals coping with grief and loss. Skilled at helping people uncover the blocks that keep them "stuck", she is able to quickly find internal and external strategies to get "unstuck", and live a life you love.For more information about coaching services, please contact her at uniqueidea@aol.com
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Tags: Chris Benoit, Dr. Phil Astin, WWE, steroids, anabolic, weight lifting, bodybuilding