Thanks to
@Sylvia for the link to the Calgary 88 documentary. Watched it over lunch today.
And it really told me a lot about Debi Thomas and how she ended up where she is. She truly was an all or nothing type. I know a lot of fans here never cared for her coach, but good grief, I honestly felt sorry for the guy at some points watching that. She simply was difficult, sometimes flat out unpleasant to be around, and wanted to do things her way, period.
One of the things I remember reading in more recent articles about her history in the medical profession is that she got fired at least twice and constantly butted heads with her medical colleagues - the doctor who offered her a prestigious fellowship described her as expecting to be treated like a star and arguing with everything he tried to get her to do - he finally said he could not work with her. Having been both in a medical practice and as a physician employee in a charitable-based hospital, the simple fact is that you cannot make it as a doctor if you don't make a concerted effort to work as part of the team - with other physicians, nurses/NPs, pharmacists, every other professional in the medical arena. Medicine is a multidisciplinary and interprofessional field - you could maybe go it alone as a country doctor decades ago, but with the explosion in technology and diagnostics and treatments, even if you maintain a solo practice, you have to be able to work with others to be successful and be happy. She picked a difficult, high tech field (that frankly was often hostile to women), and it seems like she expected everyone to do things her way from the moment go. Was she a good doctor? I'll bet she really was in the respect that she cared about her patients. But was she also a colossal pain in the ass? Looks that way, and I've seen really good physicians fired or "resign" based on their inability to play well with others, no matter how "visionary" they are. My own hospital fired a top surgeon after he threw a tray of tools, including sharps, at a nurse who angered him. He was one of the best minds and hands in his field, but no way were they putting up with that. Debi definitely had problems; per an earlier article on her, medical board records showed "concerns of an ongoing pattern of disciplinary and behavior issues and poor judgment."
I don't know for sure if she's bipolar but she really does appear to have at the least some form of personality disorder or other mental illness/mood disorder. And she basically is doing nothing about it, having now deemed the entire medical profession untrustworthy. And honestly, it's just a sad situation. One of the most heartbreaking things in that documentary was seeing her meet up with her son after one of his college football games, and she just hung on to him like he was a life preserver, whereas his reaction to her was very measured; not cold, but not very warm either. I hope she can be happy in her life, but right now she seems to be a duck on the water - trying to appear calm and cool on the surface, but paddling like mad underneath.
) And that if the guys interested in her (and there are quite a few who I've seen approach her first-hand) aren't rich and handsome, that they're "creepers" and she doesn't even acknowledge them when bemoaning her singleness. It's literally all or nothing.
