Dr. Isabelle-Anne Fontaine, Family Doctor, Saint-Romuald, QC

Ratings for Dr. Isabelle-Anne Fontaine

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  It's sad to see that among all those who contributed to the systemic abuse you endured, there doesn't seem to be even one - amazing, not even one - who has the humanity to admit that they may have been mistaken and that they are sorry for the negative impact on your life.  It's almost as if they don't consider you to be a human being, as if you're essentially different in some way from themselves. Possibly they're afraid of lawsuits or of being publicly exposed as incompetent or worse, corrupt, but they have set out into a field of work to help people, and if they can see that they have contributed to harming someone, ethical considerations dictate that they try in some way to alleviate that.  I'm not talking about money here, as I have no way of assessing that, but about trying to in some way offer you help, if in no other way than apologizing for misunderstanding and mistreating you, or for not caring enough to follow up when they knew things weren't  going right for you and that they had contributed in some way to that bad outcome. Even if one of them just told you verbally (so you couldn't use it in a lawsuit) something like "look, they didn't have anyone else to do this job, and I was interested and they offered it to me, and I thought I could help people, but in your case, I just wasn't experienced enough and unfortunately didn't think to bring in someone with more expertise, and I'm sorry for that", at least it would indicate some humanity.  All of them probably have some mentor or therapist or past teacher or someone who they could contact to help them figure out what they could do for you, if they were motivated to do so, but it appears they are mired in complacency and content with their misuse of their positions in your case.  It is a very scary and sad example of laziness, lack of professionalism and really, just plain stupidity and lack of human concern. Having been with my ex-husband, Phil (who was a licensed MFCC with a masters in psychology and notable successes within his practice) for almost 14 years, at a time when (I just counted, trying to remember) over a dozen of our closest friends either were or had  been licensed and practicing psychology professionals, either with MDs, PhDs or MFCC and Masters degrees, it makes me almost physically sick to think of what you went through and are still going through without any decent human in the field actually going out of their way to try to help you.  I wish I was one of them so I could apologize to you on behalf of the profession, but since I'm just another lay person (who's been through years of therapy myself and lived through all those years participating in discussions about all aspects of the profession with all those professionals, and read most of the books they have), I can only tell you I'm so sorry that you have met up with some of the worst examples of human beings who practice in that field, and hope you will continue to make the discoveries you need to come to terms in your own way with what happened and that you'll be able to make peace with it all and move on from it so you can finally start living your own life. Charmaine, among our friends in that profession, none of them were beginners.  All except one had had a previous career before getting into the field of psychology.  Several were MDs, one was a famous actor, one a soap opera star, one a dancer and choreographer (on Broadway), one a sociologist (even now a tenured professor at one of the UC universities), one now has a practice in Beverly Hills where some of her patients fly in regularly to see her from other countries, and they were all the kind of seriously ethical and caring people who you could trust with your life.  I cannot speak for them, but I will tell you that I spent so much time talking with them about so many related issues, that I would be profoundly surprised if they weren't all as disgusted by the treatment you've received as I am.  Not that that is any consolation to you, but I wish you could believe that there are competent and caring people in that field, although I admit evidence in your area would not lead to that conclusion. I don't see what you can do except get out of there.

  Submitted: June 15, 2019