UMC suburban college student lied about background to become prestigious Rhodes Scholar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey. Start a thread about U Penn f you want, but a) stay on topic, and b) stop perpetuating inaccuracies.

I am on topic, tough guy. Penn is part of the story about how she became a Rhodes Scholar. Their endorsement as key to her achieving that.

And I’m not perpetuating any inaccuracies. It’s the claims of the MF critics which are replete with inaccuracies, wild speculation, and outright lies.

So were you the PP who wrote "Two years in foster care is no picnic," or were you just agreeing with them?

You know she was "in foster care" for less than a year, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: the three week hospital stays. My guess is the initial hospitalizations turned into psych holds for whatever reason. As a PP stated above, if it was severe epilepsy or a battered body, those details would have been shared by here if there was evidence.

Your “guess” is just complete BS. Why are you making stuff up and then treating your made up crap like it’s fact when it isn’t. To the extent that anything from the hospital stay has been revealed, it’s listed her as being treated for a seizure disorder. That’s the only fact we know.

Nope. There is mention of "seizure-like activity," not "seizure disorder" in any of the excerpts of the medical documentation.

I work with interpretations of EEGs. I know the wording to indicate "pseudoseizures," or what we now euphemistically call "psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES)." I'm not diagnosing her, obviously, but I am saying the wording is not consistent with a medical diagnosis of epileptic seizures. That wording is much different.

I think continuing to perpetuate the error of "seizure disorder" as a diagnosis is a pretty clear attempt to elide the (more acceptable) medical connotation with the (embarrassing and not as convincing) likely psych nature of the inpatient stay. And inpatient stays aren't that long without either very clear diagnoses or some psych component.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: the three week hospital stays. My guess is the initial hospitalizations turned into psych holds for whatever reason. As a PP stated above, if it was severe epilepsy or a battered body, those details would have been shared by here if there was evidence.

Your “guess” is just complete BS. Why are you making stuff up and then treating your made up crap like it’s fact when it isn’t. To the extent that anything from the hospital stay has been revealed, it’s listed her as being treated for a seizure disorder. That’s the only fact we know.

Nope. There is mention of "seizure-like activity," not "seizure disorder" in any of the excerpts of the medical documentation.

I work with interpretations of EEGs. I know the wording to indicate "pseudoseizures," or what we now euphemistically call "psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES)." I'm not diagnosing her, obviously, but I am saying the wording is not consistent with a medical diagnosis of epileptic seizures. That wording is much different.

I think continuing to perpetuate the error of "seizure disorder" as a diagnosis is a pretty clear attempt to elide the (more acceptable) medical connotation with the (embarrassing and not as convincing) likely psych nature of the inpatient stay. And inpatient stays aren't that long without either very clear diagnoses or some psych component.

As you know, epilepsy is not the only medical condition which can cause seizures. Febrile seizures, for example, are a common form of non-epileptic seizures. Seizures can also occur in connection with head injuries which was the case with MacKenzie. I apologize if I misstated seizure disorder as the nature of her condition. But the fact is that the only thing that the hospital is reported to have been treating her for is seizures. Anything else is just speculation. I agree that hospital stays are not normally that long, but in such a hyper charged case, is it really responsible to be speculating on a psych diagnosis as the basis for her stay? The reason for her stay is a fact, so there is no need to speculate. With patient privacy laws, that fact may never be publicly known, in that case we will just have to live with the unknown and not further fuel the controversy with invented reasons for her stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey. Start a thread about U Penn f you want, but a) stay on topic, and b) stop perpetuating inaccuracies.

I am on topic, tough guy. Penn is part of the story about how she became a Rhodes Scholar. Their endorsement as key to her achieving that.

And I’m not perpetuating any inaccuracies. It’s the claims of the MF critics which are replete with inaccuracies, wild speculation, and outright lies.

So were you the PP who wrote "Two years in foster care is no picnic," or were you just agreeing with them?

You know she was "in foster care" for less than a year, right?

No, I was not the one who made the statement about 2 years in foster care. I’m well aware that she was in foster care for 11 months. I’m also aware that she never returned to her mother’s home and that she continued to live in her 3rd foster care placement for an additional year after she left the foster care system.

I frankly don’t see the relevance of quibbling about this point. What seems more to the point is that numerous posters have accused her of literally ”stealing” hundreds of thousands of dollars of tuition from Penn and of taking the place of a more deserving underprivileged student. Yet, Questbridge backs up the legitimacy of her Questbridge qualification to this day. So the accusations of her stealing are just lies.

All the rest of the complaints about her lies and exaggerations just seem like so much noise to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: the three week hospital stays. My guess is the initial hospitalizations turned into psych holds for whatever reason. As a PP stated above, if it was severe epilepsy or a battered body, those details would have been shared by here if there was evidence.

Your “guess” is just complete BS. Why are you making stuff up and then treating your made up crap like it’s fact when it isn’t. To the extent that anything from the hospital stay has been revealed, it’s listed her as being treated for a seizure disorder. That’s the only fact we know.

Nope. There is mention of "seizure-like activity," not "seizure disorder" in any of the excerpts of the medical documentation.

I work with interpretations of EEGs. I know the wording to indicate "pseudoseizures," or what we now euphemistically call "psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES)." I'm not diagnosing her, obviously, but I am saying the wording is not consistent with a medical diagnosis of epileptic seizures. That wording is much different.

I think continuing to perpetuate the error of "seizure disorder" as a diagnosis is a pretty clear attempt to elide the (more acceptable) medical connotation with the (embarrassing and not as convincing) likely psych nature of the inpatient stay. And inpatient stays aren't that long without either very clear diagnoses or some psych component.

As you know, epilepsy is not the only medical condition which can cause seizures. Febrile seizures, for example, are a common form of non-epileptic seizures. Seizures can also occur in connection with head injuries which was the case with MacKenzie. I apologize if I misstated seizure disorder as the nature of her condition. But the fact is that the only thing that the hospital is reported to have been treating her for is seizures. Anything else is just speculation. I agree that hospital stays are not normally that long, but in such a hyper charged case, is it really responsible to be speculating on a psych diagnosis as the basis for her stay? The reason for her stay is a fact, so there is no need to speculate. With patient privacy laws, that fact may never be publicly known, in that case we will just have to live with the unknown and not further fuel the controversy with invented reasons for her stay.

Febrile seizures are seizures. They are not "seizure-like activity." That's the coded description of the jerking body movements made by people who have actually nothing electrically wrong in the brain driving them, but who have psychological problems that cause them to act out in this way. And it doesn't mean they don't need help -- they do. It's just the help of a psychiatrist.

'm not diagnosing her with them, obviously. I'm saying that if this is the wording in the chart, this is the connected diagnosis, and tt also fits the timeline of the hospital stay. That will come out if she goes to court and her "seizure-like activity" is brought up at trial.

[Anonymous]

No. Didn't claim diagnosis was a fact, but stated that the wording and course was consistent with pseudoseizures, not seizures. That is exactly what happens with pseudoseizures. There is no physical evidence of any real problem, nothing that would cause refusals to walk or dizziness.

Did the following happen with Fierceton? I don't know. It the most common, classic story in the book, though, and it is entirely consistent with the course you keep pointing to as evidence of the opposite.

-----

You admit the person to rule out everything in order to make sure there is no real reason. (If there were, she would have been trumpeting it.) You run through the metabolic tests to rule out rare inborn errors of metabolism. Sometimes you have to wait for them to initiate the movements again to make sure you capture labs at the "crisis" point. (It's not a crisis, but you can't assume. You do the work to rule it out.) You do nerve conduction studies if needed, or MRIs if needed.

*Often* the "seizure-like activity" was snowed out early on with anti-epileptics -- which didn't work because they weren't really seizures, and they only stop when the person passes out and can't initiate the movements herself anymore -- and so the person gets admitted for a short stretch to the ICU because they are drugged out. Sometimes that's where the video equipment is for the EEGs.

Regardless, you have to put them on EEG monitoring on video once they come back up and wait for the "seizure-like activity" to be initiated by them. Sometimes the person does it right away, sometimes they stretch it out before starting back up. Regardless, when they start doing it, you have it on video and you have simultaneous EEG, and you can see there is nothing electrically wrong in the brain while they are doing it. Without that, you can't say for sure, even if the movements (although dramatic) are not consistent with real seizures.

When you've ruled everything out, then you have to have The Conversation. The person is always highly resistant to getting their problem named as psychological, not physical. It's now their identity, and they have been getting so much attention for it, and they feel foolish. Called out. Stupid. It's not that -- it's a real psychological problem, and it needs treatment. But it is NOT seizures. If they were seizures, they would not be called "seizure-like activity."

So the patient, the caregivers, everyone around them is all invested in not giving up the diagnosis. Sometimes the patient threatens suicide, and you have to assign a one-to-one to ensure safety. Sometimes they suddenly develop or reveal an eating disorder, and that needs to get sorted out. But it is one of the things they have control over -- whether they eat, whether they drink, whether they walk, whether they talk. They are *mad.* They exert control where they can. Sometimes they get a feeding tube to keep them safe.

Sometimes you can get psych to work with them and get them to a place where you can discharge sooner rather than later. That's less common when they have underlying personality disorder issues. Regardless, they don't leave with an actual diagnosis. It's always "seizure-like activity" and "had to have all these studies" and "couldn't walk" or all the dramatic retellings you get. People who don't accept the truth of it, whether caregivers or patient, focus on the parts they spin to save face as much as possible.

----

I don't know whether that was what happened to Fierceton, OF COURSE. Of course! But it would have been an absolutely classic way for it to pan out. It takes *longer* to make the rule-out diagnosis of psychiatric issues than it does to make a real medical diagnosis, though, and people don't understand that if they haven't seen it over, and over, and over.

The general public isn't going to know the details of her hospitalization unless she takes it to court and it becomes a matter of relevance to the case. If it does, any medical expert testimony would cream the hell out of a claim that this was a real medical issue, straight out of the gate. It would be a shut case because of the video EEG -- all you have to do it play the video of the jerking and flopping and show the totally normal brain activity. Over an out, shut case.

I hope whatever happened is in the past for her, and she moves on with her life. She's young and has a lot ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Didn't claim diagnosis was a fact, but stated that the wording and course was consistent with pseudoseizures, not seizures. That is exactly what happens with pseudoseizures. There is no physical evidence of any real problem, nothing that would cause refusals to walk or dizziness.

Did the following happen with Fierceton? I don't know. It the most common, classic story in the book, though, and it is entirely consistent with the course you keep pointing to as evidence of the opposite.

-----

You admit the person to rule out everything in order to make sure there is no real reason. (If there were, she would have been trumpeting it.) You run through the metabolic tests to rule out rare inborn errors of metabolism. Sometimes you have to wait for them to initiate the movements again to make sure you capture labs at the "crisis" point. (It's not a crisis, but you can't assume. You do the work to rule it out.) You do nerve conduction studies if needed, or MRIs if needed.

*Often* the "seizure-like activity" was snowed out early on with anti-epileptics -- which didn't work because they weren't really seizures, and they only stop when the person passes out and can't initiate the movements herself anymore -- and so the person gets admitted for a short stretch to the ICU because they are drugged out. Sometimes that's where the video equipment is for the EEGs.

Regardless, you have to put them on EEG monitoring on video once they come back up and wait for the "seizure-like activity" to be initiated by them. Sometimes the person does it right away, sometimes they stretch it out before starting back up. Regardless, when they start doing it, you have it on video and you have simultaneous EEG, and you can see there is nothing electrically wrong in the brain while they are doing it. Without that, you can't say for sure, even if the movements (although dramatic) are not consistent with real seizures.

When you've ruled everything out, then you have to have The Conversation. The person is always highly resistant to getting their problem named as psychological, not physical. It's now their identity, and they have been getting so much attention for it, and they feel foolish. Called out. Stupid. It's not that -- it's a real psychological problem, and it needs treatment. But it is NOT seizures. If they were seizures, they would not be called "seizure-like activity."

So the patient, the caregivers, everyone around them is all invested in not giving up the diagnosis. Sometimes the patient threatens suicide, and you have to assign a one-to-one to ensure safety. Sometimes they suddenly develop or reveal an eating disorder, and that needs to get sorted out. But it is one of the things they have control over -- whether they eat, whether they drink, whether they walk, whether they talk. They are *mad.* They exert control where they can. Sometimes they get a feeding tube to keep them safe.

Sometimes you can get psych to work with them and get them to a place where you can discharge sooner rather than later. That's less common when they have underlying personality disorder issues. Regardless, they don't leave with an actual diagnosis. It's always "seizure-like activity" and "had to have all these studies" and "couldn't walk" or all the dramatic retellings you get. People who don't accept the truth of it, whether caregivers or patient, focus on the parts they spin to save face as much as possible.

----

I don't know whether that was what happened to Fierceton, OF COURSE. Of course! But it would have been an absolutely classic way for it to pan out. It takes *longer* to make the rule-out diagnosis of psychiatric issues than it does to make a real medical diagnosis, though, and people don't understand that if they haven't seen it over, and over, and over.

The general public isn't going to know the details of her hospitalization unless she takes it to court and it becomes a matter of relevance to the case. If it does, any medical expert testimony would cream the hell out of a claim that this was a real medical issue, straight out of the gate. It would be a shut case because of the video EEG -- all you have to do it play the video of the jerking and flopping and show the totally normal brain activity. Over an out, shut case.

I hope whatever happened is in the past for her, and she moves on with her life. She's young and has a lot ahead.

Well, the best way to do that wasn't to file a lawsuit, now was it? And just from what I've read here, she doesn't seem the type to say I made some mistakes, forgive me, I'd like to be a Social Worker and serve the community. And her last name? Let's be honest, that's going to stick out like a sore thumb. Would you want that on your resume?

[jsteele]

I think this topic has been sufficiently covered and has devolved to an unending back and forth that is not yielding any new information.