Dr. Oz Releases New Self-Help Book Entitled ‘You: The Malingerer’

In a bid to expand his clientele beyond weight conscious, measles-loving middle aged women, Dr. Oz added a new title to his best-selling line of fraudulent self-help books called “You: The Malingerer.” This masterpiece provides a comprehensive how-to guide for malingering properly.

The book first directs the malingerer to identify his goals. These often consist of sleeping off a drug binge, awaiting a social security check, avoiding incarceration, or taking a break from annoying family members, romantic partners, or roommates. However, Dr. Oz also encourages malingerers to think outside of the box. He suggests psychiatric admission in December to make free Christmas gifts during art therapy groups or medical admission in July to drive new interns into burnout by incessantly extolling the virtues of Dr. Oz’s new miracle pill and yelling profanities.

The book then helps the malingerer identify a strategy most suitable to accomplishing her goal. For those seeking only brief emergency room stays, Dr. Oz contrasts the chest pain approach with the suicidality approach. He clarifies that complaining of basic chest pain will buy only 8 hours while the doctors check repeat labs.

This approach requires minimal conversation with doctors but frequent blood draws. Meanwhile, complaining of suicidality will buy only enough time until the psychiatrist is ready to see him, which could interrupt any planned naps. (Here, Dr. Oz offers an expert tip to prolong the waiting time: arrange for five buddies to present for suicidality before you, as this ties up the psychiatrist and ensures an extra few hours of rest.) The benefits of the suicidality approach are unlimited food and juice and only 1 required blood draw; however, the downsides include a security strip search and a prolonged interview with the psychiatrist.

For those needing a little more time, Dr. Oz recommends seeking admission. He provides tips for finagling a 1-2 night cardiac admission for a stress test (pop 10 tablets of pseudoephedrine or snort a little bit of cocaine to artificially raise the blood pressure and endorse a family history of premature heart attacks). For those wanting psychiatric admission, Dr. Oz demonstrates how to use common vernacular phrases like “I want to kill myself” instead of the usual “I have SI, HI, AVH” to fool psychiatrists. He also gives examples of legitimate plans so that the malingerer isn’t left relying on the tired trope of walking into traffic.

This is the first book released by Dr. Oz that has received praise from the medical profession. ED psychiatrist Diana Scott Martin the 5^th exclaims: “this book is a game changer–now malingerers can self-triage into the most appropriate pathway for their needs. I can’t tell you how much time I waste on people who claim to be suicidal but are stymied that I want to talk to them about it. Now the people that don’t want to talk can just go to cardiology instead!”