“… Because the legal language—due process, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, compelled testimony, derivative evidence—can sound distant from the examination room.”
“Be Cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed”
... Angela Rose-Mlot
reported in
youarewithinthenorms.com
NORMAN J CLEMENT RPH., DDS, NORMAN L. CLEMENT PHARM-TECH, MALACHI F. MACKANDAL PHARMD, BELINDA BROWN-PARKER, IN THE SPIRIT OF JOSEPH SOLVO ESQ., INC., SPIRIT OF REV. IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTER R. CLEMENT BS., MS, MBA. HARVEY JENKINS, MD, PH.D., IN THE SPIRIT OF C.T. VIVIAN, JELANI ZIMBABWE CLEMENT, BS., M.B.A., IN THE SPIRIT OF THE HON. PATRICE LUMUMBA, IN THE SPIRIT OF ERLIN CLEMENT SR., EVELYN J. CLEMENT, IN THE SPIRIT OF WALTER F. WRENN III., MD., JULIE KILLINGSWORTH, IN THE SPIRIT OF FOREST TENNANT, MD., RENEE BLARE, RPH, DR. TERENCE SASAKI, MD LESLY POMPY MD., CHRISTOPHER RUSSO, MD., NANCY SEEFELDT, IN THE SPIRIT OF WILLIE GUINYARD BS., JOSEPH WEBSTER MD., MBA, BEVERLY C. PRINCE MD., FACS., NEIL ARNAND, MD., IN THE SPIRIT OF RICHARD KAUL, MD., IN THE SPIRIT OF LEROY BAYLOR, JAY K. JOSHI MD., MBA, AISHA GARDNER, ADRIENNE EDMUNDSON, ESTER HYATT PH.D., WALTER L. SMITH BS., IN THE SPIRIT OF BRAHM FISHER ESQ., MICHELE ALEXANDER MD., CUDJOE WILDING BS, MARTIN NJOKU, BS., RPH., IN THE SPIRIT OF DEBRA LYNN SHEPHERD, BERES E. MUSCHETT, STRATEGIC ADVISORS
Angela Rose Mlot’s Letter:
In this reflective letter, Angela Rose Mlot examines the critical intersection of legal due process and individualized patient care through the lens of a chronic pain sufferer supporting Dr. Mark Ibsen. She argues that when the government bypasses constitutional protections—such as the right against self-incrimination—to pressure physicians, the resulting climate of fear compels doctors to prioritize legal self-preservation over their patients’ specific needs. Mlot contends that treating medical ethics and procedural fairness as opposing forces produces a rigid, algorithmic healthcare system in which the human being is reduced to a risk category. Ultimately, the text pleads for a more humane medical landscape where physicians can exercise clinical judgment without the threat of being treated as suspects, ensuring that vulnerable patients do not become collateral damage in broader regulatory wars.
DUE PROCESS: FAIR EXAMINATION OF FACTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
The constitution doesn’t vanish because the PERSON wears a white coat
“I read the latest piece about Dr. Mark Ibsen and attorney John Flannery’s three-pillar defense, and I found myself reading it not only as someone who speaks out, but as a patient. (1)
I support Dr. Ibsen because I believe patients deserve physicians who are willing to stand up for individualized pain care, and because physicians deserve the same fundamental fairness that we expect the government to provide to everyone else.
I don’t believe patient safety and patient autonomy have to be enemies. I believe we can demand accountability without abandoning due process, and I believe we can take the risks of pain medication seriously without forgetting the very real harm caused when pain itself is undertreated. I believe we need to stop talking about pain patients as though we’re merely a problem to be solved.
Because the legal language- due process, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, compelled testimony, derivative evidence- can sound distant from the examination room. It isn’t. For patients living with chronic and complex pain, these questions eventually find their way directly into our lives.
I have a pain-management physician.
I have followed the rules. I have submitted to urine testing. I have signed the agreements. I have tried other treatments. I have done what I have been asked to do. And still, I have watched the larger fear surrounding opioids make legitimate medical care feel increasingly precarious.
That is why Dr. Ibsen’s case matters to me.
This isn’t an argument that physicians should be above scrutiny.
They shouldn’t be.
Medical boards have a legitimate responsibility to protect patients, and physicians should be accountable when they actually violate the standard of care. But accountability and due process aren’t opposites. The Constitution doesn’t disappear simply because the person being investigated is a physician.”
Flannery’s argument raises an important question
“Flannery’s argument raises an important question: what happens when an administrative licensing proceeding and a criminal investigation overlap, and the physician is effectively forced to choose between defending their professional license and protecting themselves from self-incrimination?
The article discusses the Fifth Amendment protections recognized in cases such as McCarthy v. Arndstein, Kastigar v. United States, and Lefkowitz v. Turley, including the principle that constitutional protection against self-incrimination isn’t limited to someone sitting in a criminal courtroom.
That matters because a medical license isn’t just a piece of paper. It’s a person’s livelihood, profession, reputation, and ability to care for patients. And when the government has multiple avenues of power over that person, procedural fairness matters even more, not less. What troubles me as a patient is what happens downstream.
When physicians see what can happen to doctors who treat complex pain, some will understandably become more cautious. Some may stop prescribing altogether. Some may refuse patients whose conditions require individualized judgment.
And the patient is left standing in the middle.
“I’m following the rules”
“We’re told that our care is supposed to be individualized. Then policies become so restrictive that the individual patient disappears. I know what it feels like to have legitimate medical needs reduced to a risk category. I know what it’s like to have to demonstrate, over and over again, that I’m following the rules and that I’m not seeking medication for any reason other than managing a condition that significantly affects my life...
There’s a particular cruelty in requiring patients to continually prove that they deserve relief. Pain already takes enough from a person. It takes sleep, mobility, concentration, independence, work, relationships, and pieces of a life that other people may never see.
Then add the fear of being judged for the medication that allows someone to function, and suddenly the patient is managing two problems: the pain itself and the suspicion surrounding its treatment. That isn’t what patient-centered medicine is supposed to look like.
Patients shouldn’t have to choose between suffering and being viewed as suspicious. And physicians should not have to choose between exercising legitimate clinical judgment and protecting their own constitutional rights. There’s something deeply important about remembering that due process isn’t a technicality. It’s the mechanism that keeps accusation from becoming punishment before the facts have been fairly examined.
It requires notice, an opportunity to respond. It requires evidence to be handled lawfully. It requires the government to respect constitutional boundaries even when the other side is unpopular, controversial, or operating in an area shaped by political fear. And ultimately, it protects all of us.
Because today it may be a pain physician. Tomorrow it could be another physician treating another stigmatized condition. And somewhere in that chain is a patient who simply needs someone willing to listen closely enough to treat them. That patient shouldn’t become collateral damage in the war over opioids.
We also need to be honest about what happened when policy became disconnected from the complexity of actual human bodies. There are patients for whom one treatment works and another doesn’t. There’re patients who have exhausted physical therapy, injections, procedures, non-opioid medications, behavioral interventions, and other approaches. There are patients whose pain is the result of conditions that cannot simply be corrected or made to disappear.
Papers and documents are scattered around them, suggesting a chaotic meeting or discussion.
Medicine has always required judgment because human beings are not standardized machines. Yet pain care has increasingly been treated as though a single algorithm can determine what every patient should receive. That approach may be convenient for systems. It isn’t necessarily compassionate medicine, and it certainly isn’t individualized medicine.
I don’t want a physician who prescribes recklessly. I want a physician who knows my history, understands the risks, monitors my treatment, listens when something changes, and makes decisions based on the whole person sitting in front of them. I want safeguards. I want accountability. I want informed consent. I want appropriate monitoring.
But I also want the freedom for a physician to say, This particular patient is different, and their treatment needs to reflect that. That shouldn’t automatically make the physician suspect. We are people. We are patients trying to live inside bodies that sometimes make ordinary life extraordinarily difficult.
A doctor who will look at us as whole humans
We deserve doctors who will look at us as whole human beings rather than as prescriptions, diagnoses, risk scores, or liabilities. Doctors who are willing to do that deserve a system that allows them to practice medicine without fear becoming the invisible hand guiding every decision. Because when fear governs medicine, the patient eventually becomes invisible.
And when the patient becomes invisible, calling the system “safe” doesn’t make it humane. It requires the government to respect constitutional boundaries even when the person on the other side is unpopular, controversial, or practicing in a politically charged area. And ultimately, it protects all of us. Because today it may be a pain physician. Tomorrow it could be another physician treating another stigmatized condition. And somewhere in that chain is a patient who simply needs someone willing to listen closely enough to treat them. That patient should not become collateral damage in the war over opioids.
We also need to be honest about what happened when policy became disconnected from the complexity of actual human bodies.”
Angela Rose-Milot
“Be Cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed”
END NOTES
- She just posted this on her Facebook after reading your incredible article in YouAreWithinTheNorms. com called Understanding Atty. John Flannery’s THREE-PILLAR DEFENSE AND ARGUMENT IN THE UNDISCLOSED NEXUS OF EVIDENCE LAUNDERING BETWEEN the DEA & the Montana Board OF Medical Examiners (BOME) VS. Dr. Mark Ibsen, MD, PAIN CARE SPECIALIST. see link https://youarewithinthenorms.com/2026/09/10/understanding-atty-john-flannerys-three-pillar-defense-and-argument-in-the-undisclosed-nexus-between-d-e-a-montana-board-of-medical-examiners-bome-vs-dr-mark-ibsen-md-pain-care-specia/
DR. FOREST TENNANT, MD
🔓 🔓 🔓
ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE
OUR TREE OF KNOWLEDGE SHALL NEVER BE SUPPRESSED
FOR NOW, YOU ARE WITHIN
THE NORMS
REFERENCES:
TRIBUTES AND DEDICATIONS
Dr. Tennant’s life represents a tireless battle to give scientific visibility to invisible physical suffering, leaving behind a blueprint for compassionate, specialized neurological care.
“drug dealers in white coats” for what may actually be good-faith medical disagreements or errors..”
…from Ruan vs. United States Case 21-1014
Don’t you agree with me that the raid should be scrubbed from Dr. Tennant’s sterling record?
