"This is a complaint regarding the misconduct of Emily Bliss Gerber, psychologist and director in the Kaiser San Rafael psychiatry department. On May 20, 2020, Dr. Gerber was involved in an unclear capacity with my false imprisonment and abuse within Kaiser San Rafael Medical Center. What remains at the forefront of Dr. Gerber's misconduct is that she appeared to be overseeing my abuser, a social worker (Kerry Savola-Levin), who evaluated me in the emergency room, and also appeared to faciliate/orchestrate a retaliatory, punitive, and unethical detention based on her demonstrably false evaluation report. However, Dr. Gerber's documentation, per my medical records, appears to obscure her role in this injustice.
Clinicians in health facilities are required to document patient encounters and care-related decisions transparently and thoroughly, something Dr. Gerber either failed to do due to incompetence or in order to deliberately obscure her role. Deficiencies in documentation are a serious regulatory offense that can even be punishable by disciplinary action before a clinician's licensing board. Should Dr. Gerber refuse to cooperate with the open investigations into my multiple abusers from her department, I will have no other option than to report this egregious act of carelessness and omission to the California Board of Psychology.
All that appears to have happened, per Dr. Gerber's notes, was she confirmed an involuntary psychiatric hold, based on information that was untrue and unsubstantiated, without ever even taking the intiiative to talk to me in person or virtually. She made a note under the "After Hours Psych" line/service, that she was going to make calls to see if there was an open bed available at another facility where I could be transferred, and to ultimately make an order for that to be carried out. This was against the recommendation of the emergency room physician, who was the only clinician who actually evaluated me face-to-face that day, and also ostensibly fashioned as a punishment for declining to disobey the Bay Area's shelter-in-place order. The hold was maintained immediately after I said that I did not want to stay in another person's house where I could put them at risk of infection; Dr. Gerber's direct report clearly interpreted that as non-compliance that needed to be disciplined with solitary confinement and loss of civil rights.
Throughout this time, Dr. Gerber provided no evidence that she was requesting voluntary residential treatment on my behalf, which I had been asking for for over a month at that point, and instead appeared to only continue the abuse by authorizing forced confinement in an involuntary detention psychiatric facility, even though she had no evidence of me being an imminent risk for harm to myself (this is abundantly clear in Kerry's report), nor any evidence of my being in denial of my psychiatric issues and need for higher levels of care. In my view, the only reasonable explanation is that she went along with my abuser's plan without ever stopping to think critically about whether this was medically necessary, and that she was continuing Kaiser's established pattern of denying volutnary residential treatment to me while I was their patient.
Dr. Gerber appears to be specialized in pediatric mental health issues, and as is the case with my abuser, there are serious concerns as to whether Dr. Gerber was even qualified (had adequate competencies) in clinical decision-making for an adult like me. Additionally, Dr. Gerber evidently creates the appearance of being a trauma-informed, sensitive provider, but in reality, she lacked the humility and the foresight to understand the devastating ramifications of her behavior. By essentially incarcerating a non-suicidal young woman, turning away from and refusing to discipline her abusive employees, and playing a role in repeated denials of appropriate care, Dr. Gerber inflicted such irreparable harm that it has destroyed my once-illustrious career, mental and emotional well-being, physical health, and ability to care for myself as I once did. On top of all of this, she indisputably failed to even describe the actions she took to allow this abuse to happen. Nonetheless, because she was in a position of leadership in connection to my abusers, and she is obligated to document her patient encounters and correspondence clearly and completely, she neglected to implement anything even remotely resembling an appropriate standard of care in this context and as a psychologist. I demand that Dr. Gerber come forward and describe exactly what she knew, when she knew it, what she did, why she did it, and how she did it. Again, it is contingent upon her continued licensure that she incude all of this information in her notes while working with patients; she refused to do so at every opportunity. She has no business working in a leadership capacity, perhaps even as a clinician at all. Her so-called interests and commitment to trauma-informed care is, based on the nightmare I experienced with her, fraudulent. She has never once expressed remorse or offered to take accountability for her role in my abuse, nor has she conceded that she took action on false information. I will not rest until this changes.
To others reading this: please do not ever elect to see this provider or anyone she oversees. She is either recklessly incompetent or malicious, or she might be both. The damage she is capable of inflicting is life-ruining, and if she handles herself with you the way she did with me, she will not acknowledge the harm that she has caused.
Legal disclaimer: All information provided here is based on true and largely verifiable information that I possess or know confidently from my firsthand experience. Due to the trauma of this incident and Dr. Gerber's pathetic lack of documentation, there is other information on which I can only provide educated guesses and informed opinions with respect to her motives and behavior. My opinions do not serve to injure this person in their primary intent, because not only has Dr. Gerber not received any public reprimand or overt damages as a result of her role in this abuse, but I also have a civic duty to share this information in order to protect vulnerable people from future abuse, neglect, and mistreatment. I recognize that there may be information where the context and nuances may be disputed or seen differently, but I make all statments and opinions in good faith that they are true to the best of my knowledge, and consequently not defamatory.
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