Dr. Daniel Francis Maixner, MD

I will be frank here and will attempt to be objective. Dr. Maixner is, or was when I encountered him, Director of the ECT Program, so his bias and professional beliefs are clear. We are what we do. He spent a long time trying to persuade me to submit to this highly controversial procedure, assuring me that the side-effects are/would be minimal, the risks nada, etc. All of which is nonsense but at that very vulnerable time in my life I took him seriously. My problem was anxiety which, thankfully, I realized would, in all likelihood--I had that much common sense--not be helped by ECT, probably the opposite. Since then I have fully recovered--I never had ECT--and, most certainly, am not now, nor ever really was, seriously depressed. To treat my depression with ECT would have been like shooting a gnat with a cannon, but, as someone somewhere once said if a man's only tool is a hammer than all the world appears, to him, to be full of nails.At an earlier date Dr. Maixner prescribed… (and had administered) riserdal and zyprexa with the same cavalier disregard for the possible negatives--nor ever informing me of said. These two drugs did, almost, drive me to the point where, I guess, I would have submitted to almost anything: and, most certainly, schizophrenia was NEVER even suggested by any other doctor I had ever encountered.It's all fine and proper that we believe in what we are doing--without that belief we cannot act--but to make professional decisions of gravity that can/could seriously affect the life of another based on an impression garnered in one or two meetings/consultations is not, in my opinion, either safe or caring.i