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for anybody to cope with such a "snake". My own pride as a doctor, my moral standards, and my constant concern of improving the quality of medical care in our department, made me particularly susceptible and intolerant at everything this guy was doing. Of course, as I was gradually learning about his immoral and illegal acts, I was growing more and more disgusted and outraged by him. My other colleagues, as well as his patients and his students, were either too tolerant or too scared to say or to do anything against this man which only made me even angrier. Everybody suffered in silence from his incompetence, moodiness, harassments, abuses, lies, threats, insults, and arbitrary decisions. I myself have been repeatedly humiliated and deceived by this guy who, by the way, often used to say that he was "my friend". I felt I could not tolerate such behavior. But what I found most outrageous and frightening of all was the way he interfered with my work, by indicating several wrong medical diagnoses and therapies to my patients, and forcing me to accept them and take full responsibility for his mistakes, against my will and my beliefs. But he had to prove that "he was the boss", and everybody knows that "the boss is always right, even when he is wrong"! Useless to say I was not the only one to endure such treatment.

What could I do? Where could I go? Whom could I have complained to? The guy was everywhere: he was head of the department, director of the hospital, chief of the teaching staff, and member of the leadership of the university and of virtually all major scientific and health care organizations in the city and in the country! Not to mention his political and economic power, as well as his family and his friends in high places! Compared to him, I was nobody. The battle was obviously unequal. My only advantages were my determination and a certain kind of respect he still had for me. Indeed, he envied me and hated my guts, but somehow he also admired me and needed me for my professional skills and for my honesty. He knew I was trustworthy and hard working, and he had often used me to solve difficult cases or to write scientific books and papers, for which he had unduly taken the credit.
Considering my tiny advantages against his huge power, I tried various strategies to deal with this psychopathic man. Let me describe these in a somehow "technical" manner:

First strategy: open discussions. I tried to speak with him, using scientific arguments and common sense,

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