Just finished watching the documentary. I’ve never heard this story before.

It’s absolutely infuriating.

Kevorkian?

No. Kervorkian’s patients knew what they were getting in to.

This guy is a monster and the system totally failed.

We watched a documentary about him last night. The Wiki tells a more complete story.

Dr. Death

Just shows how completely vulnerable we non MDs are to those with the magic letters after their names. (Especially disturbing to me who went through an eight-hour complex spinal operation with a highly reputed surgeon who left me struggling to walk.)

Not that ordinary MD's (non-specialists/non-surgeons) could do quite so much harm even if they were so inclined, but I do notice no MDs on the roster of his victims.

Absolutely terrifying how little power the other professionals and institutions (aware of his egregious misconduct) apparently had to stop him. Also horrifying to contemplate how the professional cabal protecting doctors from each other played a role in preventing them from criticizing him, in particular, from testifying against him.

Considering he started as a not very talented football player who somehow managed to switch to medicine - even an MD/PhD program - it seems he was only brilliant at one thing, that is building a scintillating resume.

I guess no one could believe anyone who had his name on all those papers could be such a hack. Makes me wonder again, how much difference the schools and programs doctors attend matter in the qualifications of their graduates. (Remind me to stay clear of any Tennessee schools* whatsoever - accredited...how?)

I guess as long as the applicants can pay some of these lowest tier schools, they can get in - and in due course, graduate. Remember that sickening joke, "what do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of their medical school class"?

Answer: "Doctor".

Why oh WHY didn't any of them call him out? Was it because all his credentials intimidated them? I guess no could believe their very eyes.

Then too, perhaps they all decided they'd let someone else expose him in case their incredulous suspicions weren't actually accurate.

*Not even feeling very warmly toward any Texan schools or hospitals even though I know how big the state is and how many excellent facilities are there.

Still...

You couldn’t run fast enough to give me a hospital bed at Baylor.

Or anywhere else in Texas.

Troubled and confused by the article's saying (they all agreed) that everyone liked him immediately upon meeting him.

I guess self-confidence however unjustified. is attractive. We tend to take people at their word (not counting fellow surgeons at his side in the OR who SAW proof to the contrary).

I'm just remembering a local legal issue involving medical negligence. It turned out an anesthesiologist's wife was leaving him, and it upset him.

Like so many, he turned to drink.
Including before surgery.

None of his colleagues (or other OR staff) turned him in until a LONG. much too long time, had elapsed.

His defense lawyer played on the jury and public's sympathy because the poor guy had been hurt by his wife's desertion. Imagine! Come-on, give him a break. Don't take his license away, don't even penalize him in any significant way.

Don't remember just how it turned out (no one died on the table - going to try to find an item online about it), just how long his dangerous drunken practice went on and that no one dared to turn him in despite numerous close calls.

Also, the sympathy we were asked to feel for this loaded gun who was allowed to (having trouble coming up with metaphor...) continue being pointed at trusting, unconscious patients, citizens of our town.

Some kind of campaign needs to be directed at medical professionals attempting to dissuade them from the traditional false loyalty to their peers that permits such risks to the public to occur. Violations of trust in the medical profession are the worst.

If doctors were not so opposed to speaking against other doctors would Dr. Death have become a problem?

quote:

Originally posted by CHAS:
If doctors were not so opposed to speaking against other doctors would Dr. Death have become a problem?

No! That's just my point.

And even the surgeon testifying for the defense, said that all the same conditions which had allowed Dr.D. to "get away with murder" (and maiming and crippling) - were still in place.

In other words, the overall system of qualifying doctors and maintaining oversight of them (surgeons all the more), is defective. That therefore, there's nothing preventing other such sadistic sociopaths from rising to the same position of power without protecting the public.

The most basic layers of scrutiny missing are examining the authenticity of physicians' creds as they rise to the top. Without this scrutiny and especially protected by the unwritten rule against physicians' exposing others' lapses, the more they gain power and credibility.

Dr. D had access to the roads leading him to his position - in prestige, social and financial power, and perhaps of them all, most helpful was the understood doctors' OMERTA when it came to exposing violations of the public trust.