Bad Medicine: Daffy Doctors & Medical Mishaps

[escargot]

Samsa, you sound like you're going to make a very good doctor!
It's great to have your perspective on these things. We will be reading any comments of yours with particular interest.

Rolls up trouser leg
I've had this bad knee for about a week now......
:lol:

 

[gridban]

my problem is with GPs, I've never had one I've liked, mostly they seem indifferent and as long as you can walk and talk it's hard to convince them there's anything wrong with you in my experience...

 

[Anonymous]

Samsa, you sound like you're going to make a very good doctor!

I intend to model myself on the doctor from Jaaaaam. Power corrupts you know

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

A ballsup?

Testicles gone in 'wrong op'

25/04/2005 22:41 - (SA)


Alet Rademeyer

Pretoria - "We performed the wrong operation on you, we didn't look at your folder," a doctor is alleged to have told an aged man whose testicles had been removed instead of his prostate gland.

The 72-year-old man from Volksrust in Mpumalanga underwent the operation at Pretoria Academic Hospital in 2002.

The man has laid a complaint with the Health Professions Council of South Africa which will investigate possible unprofessional conduct on the part of another Pretoria doctor, who performed the operation.

In view of the "sensitive" nature of the case, Dr P J Barnard, chairperson of the council's disciplinary committee, ordered on Monday that the patient's identity, as well as that of the doctors involved, should not be published in the media.

The hearing for the two doctors has been combined and both are pleading not guilty.

Did the wrong op, said doctor

In his letter of complaint, the patient claims the wrong operation was performed on him and that the removal of his testicles was not the operation about which he had been informed and for which he was prepared.

According to the letter, after the man's testicles had been removed, one doctor - not the one who did the operation - said to him they had performed the wrong operation on him.

The doctor who performed the operation is charged with, among other things, not consulting with Professor S Reif, who had referred the patient for a prostate operation, when there was confusion about what the correct procedure would be.

When cross-examined on Monday, the patient said the doctor did tell him before the operation what the removal of his testicles entailed and what the side effects would be.

He said that, at that stage, he was satisfied with the doctor's explanation that it was a new technique to first remove the testicles and afterwards the prostrate, if there was not an improvement.

Having emotional problems

He said he had decided by himself, without his two sons putting any pressure on him, to lay a charge against the two doctors.

In his complaint he says he is experiencing emotional problems and having hot flushes.

"I am also short-tempered and have put on about 10kg since the operation," he said.

The hearing continues.

Source

 

[JamesWhitehead]

"I am also short-tempered and have put on about 10kg since the operation . . ."

" . . . but, looking on the bright side, I've been offered a job in the Vatican choir." :?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Scissors found in Iranian woman -- six years after caesarean

Tue May 24, 8:28 AM ET

TEHRAN (AFP) - A pair of scissors and four needles have been recovered from inside the belly of an Iranian woman six years after she gave birth by caesarean section, the Iran newspaper reported.

The report said the unnamed woman from the western town of Marivan in Kurdistan province had complained of chronic abdominal pains -- prompting the discovery of leftover tools in her tummy.

The doctor who performed the caesarean is now facing legal action, the paper said Tuesday.

Source

 

[rynner2]

Luckily all has turned out well (so far) for this daffy doc:

'How could I miss my own cancer?'
By Jane Elliott
BBC News health reporter

Elizabeth Howard, a GP, missed her own cancer for eight months.

By the time it was diagnosed, her tumour was wrapped around her lungs and her heart.

Later this month Dr Howard will be running Cancer Research's Race for Life - it is her way of thanking those who gave her a new lease of life.

Even medical professionals, she says, can be fooled when cancers do not follow the rules.

Research

Two years after a rare diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in her chest the 35-year-old GP, from Romford, Essex, says she "cannot believe" it happened.

When she first became ill, she and her doctors misjudged her chronic cough and the tightness in her chest as signs her asthma was getting worse.

The steroid tablets she was taking partially treated the lymphoma, easing symptoms and giving false reassurances.

Signs

Dr Howard tried to rationalise her problems: the tiredness was down to stress and sleep deprivation and the hot sweats a product of the heatwave of 2003.

Logically there was no reason for her to think she had cancer. She saw her chest consultant regularly and had even had an x-ray earlier that year.

But by the time Dr Howard had lost about 35% of her lung function, her specialist decided to send her to an ear, nose and throat consultant for a second opinion.

He decided she needed extra tests, and asked if she wanted a CT, or computer tomography, scan.

"Knowing that most of the time no cause is found I suddenly felt I was being a hypochondriac or 'being stupid' and let it drop.

"I thought 'What's the use? It'll only come back negative and waste a precious scan'."

But Dr Howard's condition deteriorated further, so she decided to go ahead with the scan.

"My breathing was so bad that I could hardly finish sentences and my patients were sending me home."

Dr Howard underwent three types of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

'Patients sent me home'

Despite having lost her hair twice, the cancer did not go into remission until she was given further treatment.

Although Dr Howard berates herself for not spotting her own condition, she realises that it was thoroughly masked by her chronic asthma.

"I thought, 'How can I be a good GP with so many letters after my name yet miss my own cancer for over eight months?'

"Cancers have expected patterns of behaviour. The urgent cancer referral guidelines are based on these common patterns.

"Then there are ones like mine which decide they aren't going to be part of the crowd and go and hide somewhere it is difficult to find them.

"In my case my only swollen glands were deep in my chest where I could neither see nor feel them.

"Other cancers, like bowel and ovarian, also play hide and seek, giving vague symptoms on and off for months before giving any definite clue to their identity."

Dr Howard now lives each day as it comes.

No one can tell her what the next few years hold, especially as her body does not seem to follow all the usual patterns of the disease. Long-term prognosis is indefinable.

"Once I had the diagnosis there was a chance to do something about my illness, so instead of a death sentence this scan was my last-minute salvation.

"I have already beaten the odds. The next five years remains to be seen.

"There is no crystal ball for any of us. If there were I am not sure I'd want to look, in case I don't like the answer. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4602311.stm

 

[lkb3rd]

I have a condition called acromegally. It is caused by a "benign" tumor on my pituitary gland, which grows slowly and produces hideous amounts of growth hormnone.
At one point, approximately a year before i was diagnosed, i was at the gp. It was over something different. Anyway, he asked me if i had any other complaints or anything i wanted to tell him. I said yes. i told him that my hands seemed to be growing, and i was gaining lots of weight, even though i didn't feel like i was getting "fat". He asked me if i had been eating more than usual. I said no. He left the room, and never mentioned it again. Subsequently, i have learned that both of these things were typical and clear signs of acromegally.
A year went by, and i was diagnosed by a different doctor with the condition(she is a great doctor, thank god there are one or two around). Here's the kicker. By the time i was diagnosed, the tumor had grown around my carotid artery, making it partially inoperable. I still have, and likely will always have, this condition, unless i undergo radiation. This carries A 40% risk of losing my testicles, among other side effects (this one is thew one that bothers me the most tho :shock:. Well, this is unnacceptable to me.
So, to the "have you been overeating" doc, "thanks doc, for being on the ball. i hope the bill got paid on time(it did) and you had a nice weekend spending it."
I had a second problem with a different doctor in relation to this. His name is Dr. Isaac Goodrich. He is a brain surgeon. He told me he thought there was a *slight* chance he could get it all (probably not the part on the carotid artery), but he was confident of an 85% "debulking". I thought that sounded great.
Several weeks after the surgery, i learned that he had only removed 15%, and my blood tests in fact showed a worsening of the condition.
At this point, he entirely changed his story, telling me about what a success it had been, and now i was ready for radiation (at the time i wasnt even aware of the risks in that). I said HOLD UP. your story has changed. He lied and said it hadn't. I "fired " him as of right there and then, and with help from my gp, started arranging to have it redone in boston.
He then procceeded to hinder me from traveling to boston to have the surgery redone for over a year (while 85% of the tumor continued to grow in the center of my head mind you), because he refused to write a letter to the insurance company, saying that Dr. Swearingen in Boston was the best man for the job. Dr. swearingen does 3 of these surgeries a week, compared to my original doc's perhaps 3 a month, and possibly even less. This arrogant son of a bitch continued to insist that HE was the best man for the job, and was happy to do it again ( i thought it was a huge success asshole, why are you willing to try again).
MAN do i hate that arrogant piece of trash.
/me takes a deep breath, and goes back to his usual happy go lucky self... o wait a sec, i am sullen and depressed
edit: i should add, the second surgery in boston was a huge success, and 90%+ of it is gone, with the rest controllable with medication. Hehe , i got all annoyed and forgot to add the end of the story

 

[TheQuixote]

Lenny, it sounds like you had a hellish time with the original surgeon, I'm glad that your treatment is in much better hands now. :yeay:

----------------------------------------

More incompetent doctors... *speechless* :shock:

Nurses hid patients from Doctor Death
06.06.05

By Kathy Marks


SYDNEY - His own colleagues called him "Doctor Death", and nurses were so alarmed by Dr Jayant Patel's surgical blunders that they hid patients from him as he walked the wards.

But warnings about Patel, linked with the deaths of 87 patients at an Australian hospital, went unheeded for two years. As the allegations of lethal ineptitude mounted, health authorities helped the Indian-born surgeon to flee the country, buying him a one-way business-class ticket to the United States.

Horror stories about Patel's tour of duty at Queensland's Bundaberg Base Hospital have emerged at a public inquiry in Brisbane, which heard that he amputated the leg of a diabetic Aboriginal woman and then "forgot about her". When she was discovered six days later, she was semi-comatose and the stump of her leg was gangrenous.

Patel, 55, was recruited in 2003 and promoted to be the hospital's director of surgery, despite a record of disciplinary action against him in the US. In New York his licence was revoked in 2001 because of gross negligence. The inquiry heard that Queensland health authorities never checked his qualifications. Staff claim he repeatedly punctured vital organs and tampered with patient notes to conceal his incompetence.

The hospital's director of medicine, Dr Peter Miach, allegedly saw him do coronary surgery on a man who was "moaning and screaming" because he was not anaesthetised.

Toni Hoffman, a nurse who blew the whistle on Patel, said patient after patient died of complications after having unnecessary or inappropriate procedures.

One man died of internal bleeding after Patel stabbed him 50 times with a needle in an attempt to drain fluid from a sac around his heart. A scan had shown that there was no fluid there, Hoffman said, but "he decided he was going to do it anyway". When Hoffman raised her concerns with administrators, they accused her of a personality clash.

- INDEPENDENT

The New Zealand Herald

 

[escargot]

That doctor may be crap, but he is also carrying the can for a lot of staff and procedural negligence.

For example, why would a patient end up with gangrene if the surgeon forgot about her? Had she been properly nursed, her condition would have been carefully monitored and any doctor, not just the one who operated on her, would have been called in to treat her at the first sign of trouble.

Similarly, where was the anaesthetist when the heart patient was still awake?

It's also unethical, to say the least, to offload a dangerous doctor onto unwitting patients in another country.

That hospital's problems won't be sorted just by getting rid of Dr Death.

 

[Anome]

Ahh, Doctor Patel....

A little background here.

The Doctor who left a town for dead
When he started work in Bundaberg on April 1, 2003, Jayant Patel told the locals they were lucky to have him. Nothing was beyond him, even in a place like provincial Queensland, where the facilities, he sneered, were "third world".

Over the next two years Dr Patel operated on 867 patients in Bundaberg, many of them several times. He was charming, brash, loud, confident and hard-working - a surgeon with just the right blend of arrogance and assurance. Only he wasn't, strictly speaking, a surgeon at all.

On April 1, 2005, Bundaberg hospital bosses approved Dr Patel's invoice for a $3547 one-way ticket to the US despite knowing he was up to his neck in accusations of fatal incompetence. They also knew he had been banned from practising in New York and been found guilty of gross negligence in Oregon.

...Edit...
[One person's comment] could be dismissed as the hyperbole of a bitter man with a grudge against the doctor who didn't fix his bowel complaint, were it not for the lawyers attending the Brisbane hearing; the eight other investigations into Dr Patel's legacy; the mea culpas of Queensland's Premier, Peter Beattie; and the vicious finger-pointing of doctors, politicians and bureaucrats.

The Bundaberg Hospital Commission of Inquiry is not just an inquiry into the possibility that medical negligence caused 87 deaths and hundreds of injuries. It is an inquiry into the health of Australia's public hospitals, in particular, in regional areas where doctors are scarce. It is an inquiry into accusations of bureaucratic malaise and cover-up.

The inquiry, which is headed by Tony Morris QC, heard on Wednesday that a nurse who tried to alert local politicians to the problems at the hospital found her complaints would "sit like a dead mullet on their floor". It also heard that senior medical staff first tried to warn hospital administrators about Dr Patel within two months of his starting work.

Bundaberg Base Hospital is in the heart of the town, and while the population it serves has swollen by 40 per cent, the number of hospital beds fell from 216 in 1999 to 138 in 2004. It was into this environment of tight budgets and scarce medical skills that Dr Patel arrived.

The head of the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association, Dr David Molloy, said the salaries offered in places like regional Queensland would not buy a whole lot. But someone like Dr Patel was a bean-counter's dream. He ability to perform so many procedures, many of them quite complex, brought lots of money to the hospital. Dr Patel's salary was about $200,000 a year but he used to boast to his colleagues that he was worth $500,000 a year to the hospital.

The director of medicine at the hospital, Dr Peter Miach, told the inquiry this week that his calls for hospital management to act against Dr Patel were ignored. An intensive care nurse, Toni Hoffman, said she sent an email to the hospital's director of medical services, Dr Darren Keating, complaining about Dr Patel just 10 weeks after he arrived. Nothing happened. She kept complaining, and was admonished for being racist, or for not being able to manage Dr Patel's "difficult" personality.

So there was some staff and procedural negligence, but the doctor was a large part of the problem. The enquiry will be looking into all of it, not just Doctor Patel.

 

[lopaka]

Such a nice story with which to start the week.(To my overseas friends, Duke is a very highly regarded private university ie 'the Harvard of the south'). Though, honestly, I'm thinking that many of the post-surgery complications reported are just that, normal post-surgery complications. Nevertheless, sounds like the Dukies are going to on the hook for millions.

Report: Surgical tools washed in hydraulic fluid
Dozens have reported lingering health concerns

Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 8:09 AM EDT (1209 GMT)


RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- About 3,800 patients at two hospitals run by Duke University Health System were operated on last year with instruments that were washed in hydraulic fluid instead of detergent, hospital regulators said.

Duke Health Raleigh and Durham Regional hospitals put patients in "immediate jeopardy" in November and December by not detecting the problem, despite complaints from medical staff about slick tools, according to a report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The hospitals did not fix the problem for weeks, said the agency, which oversees patient care at hospitals that receive payments from federal insurance programs.

The mix-up apparently occurred when an elevator company drained hydraulic fluid into empty detergent barrels last summer. The detergent supplier later picked up the barrels and mistakenly redistributed them as washing fluid.

Duke Health officials assured patients in January that the likelihood of infection from the tools was "no more than the risk normally associated" with the procedures that the patients underwent.

However, dozens of patients who were exposed to the surgical instruments have reported lingering health concerns ranging from fatigue and joint pain to problems requiring hospitalization, the The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported Sunday.

At least 50 patients who developed complications have taken their concerns to lawyers, though no one has sued Duke or the hospitals. Two lawsuits have been filed against the elevator company and the detergent supplier.

Duke Health officials declined to comment further, citing possible lawsuits.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/13/di ... index.html

 

[drbastard]

War vet Bill has had broken neck for 62 years



HAMPSHIRE war veteran Bill Boyd has amazed doctors by walking around for more than 60 years with a broken neck.

He often wondered why he got a sore neck after playing football, but put it down to rheumatism.

So Bill, 83, a retired engineer from Cheriton near Winchester, was stunned when he went to hospital following a minor car crash.

X-rays revealed he broke his neck when parachuting out of a burning Lancaster bomber during a raid over Germany in 1943.

Doctors at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital said that for weeks after his capture he had been just a millimetre from death or paralysis.

But two weeks in a German cell saved him. With nothing to do but lie on a mattress his injury healed very slightly but just enough.

Bill, a widower, of Markall Close, said: "It seems I broke my neck either when the parachute deployed or when I hit the ground.

"I had a stiff neck for a while. I just thought I'd strained it and later just put the aches I still get down to rheumatism.

"I've been told that lying on that rock-hard mattress in prison saved me. Being stuck there with nothing to do and nowhere to go enabled nature to somehow bind things up.

"I was amazed. I'd been walking round for 62 years with a broken neck without knowing."

Bill, a flight engineer, had been on his 18th raid when he was shot down by a German fighter.

Five of the seven-man crew survived and soon after landing they were captured and held until May 1945.

After the war Bill was a sportsman but suffered from occasional soreness in his neck.

The grandfather of three added: "I played a bit of cricket and was a keen soccer player. I often used to head the ball, which was a heavy leather thing in those days.

"After games I would have a bit of a sore neck but I never would have guessed I had broken it."

His injury was only recently revealed when he had precautionary X-rays for whiplash after a minor car crash.

He said: "A week later my doctor rang and said `Get ready to come back to hospital in an hour - you have a broken neck.' I was absolutely stunned.

"They put a brace on my neck and put me on a bed without a pillow and did scans.

"Then the orthopaedic surgeon told me it was a historic injury and I must have been in an accident many years ago.

"I told him the only thing I had done was jump out of the Lancaster and he said that was it.

"When my chute opened I remember there was a tremendous jolt that shook my neck, plus I landed badly too."

Dr Will Mason said: "I have never come across a case like this. Mr Boyd has been extraordinarily lucky. He could have died or been paralysed."

http://www.thisissouthampton.co.uk/hamp ... NEWS2.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Botty Blasts

Blimey!! :shock:

Big bang theories

Marc Abrahams chronicles the boom in unfortunate colonic explosions

Tuesday June 14, 2005
The Guardian

Here is a brief guide to some unfortunate explosions of a particular type. The details sit quietly in back issues of medical journals. Only occasionally does anyone come to see them. The visitor is, in most cases, either a doctor in sudden need of information or a scholar in search of violent titillation.

BOOM (Italy, 1952) - Unusual Complication in Electrosurgery: Explosion of Gases in the Cecum During Operation of Cecal Fistula, by G Pezzuoli and C Ghiringhelli (published in L'Ospedale Maggiore, September 1952).

BOOM (Spain, 1964) - Pneumatic Explosion of the Cecum in Patients with Carcinoma of the Colon, by N Antonelli and E Borenstein (in Prensa Médica Argentina, October 1964).

BOOM (Germany, 1974) - Intestinal Gas Explosion As a Rare Cause of Traumatic Colon Perforation, by FJ Stucker and H Molzberger (in Chirurg, August 1974).

BOOM (America, 1974) - Explosions of Colonic Gas, by BH Rogers (in the New England Journal of Medicine, November 1974).

BOOM (Denmark, 1978) - Intestinal Explosion During the Use of Diathermy, by NJ Olsen and V Berg (in Ugeskrift for Laeger, July 1978).

BOOM (Japan, 1985) - Gas Explosion During Diathermy Colotomy, by N Shinagawa et al (in the British Journal of Surgery, April 1985).

BOOM (Israel, 1992) - Diathermy-Induced Gas Explosion in the Intestinal Tract, by E Gross et al (in Harefuah, July 1992).

BOOM (Scotland, 1996) - Gas Explosion During Colonic Surgery, by JH De Wilt et al (in the Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, December 1996).

BOOM (France, 2003) - Intestinal Gas Explosion During Operation: A Case Report, by G Bouhours et al (in Annales Françaises d'Anesthésie et de Réanimation, April 2003).

This type of explosion sometimes raises questions. Here are two such: one explicit, the other implied.

BOOM (Query) - Colonic Gas Explosion: Is a Fire Extinguisher Necessary? by JH Bond and MD Levitt (in Gastroenterology, December 1979).

KERSPLAT/KABOOM - Unusual Blast Colonic Injury Due to a Fall, by EO Fashakin and PA Ajayi (in Tropical Gastroenterology, April-June 1991). The authors explain: "Blast injuries are caused by bomb blasts, intracolonic explosion of gases after diathermy, over-enthusiastic bowel insufflation at sigmoidoscopy or by pressure hose applied to the anus. We report the case of a 28-year-old man with an unusual blast injury of the colon following a fall from a colanut tree."

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekl ... 96,00.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

War vet Bill has had broken neck for 62 years



HAMPSHIRE war veteran Bill Boyd has amazed doctors by walking around for more than 60 years with a broken neck.

http://www.thisissouthampton.co.uk/hamp ... NEWS2.html

Ther is some suggetsion that it was a more recent injury:

How did a man walk around with a broken neck for so long?

Alok Jha
Thursday June 16, 2005
The Guardian

Broken necks can be hard to spot because often they are so subtle, a fact 83-year-old RAF hero Bill Boyd is now taking in. He went to hospital after a minor car crash only to be told that he had been walking around with a broken neck for 62 years. Boyd thinks he might have sustained the injury when he parachuted out of a burning Lancaster bomber during a raid over Germany in 1943.

David Harrison, a consultant spinal surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, says spinal injuries can be missed because the people who suffer them don't think they've done themselves much harm. "Sometimes people think they've had a whiplash and the more stoical of us might say, 'I'll soldier on, it's getting better.'"

Neck injuries can also be missed by doctors because they are not obvious on x-rays. These overlooked injuries can heal themselves and cause no lasting harm, but not always.

"If there's an injury with potential for severe displacement, then another insult - a secondary fall or someone attempting to treat or manipulate the spine - might displace it to a point where nerve injury can occur," says Harrison.

In Boyd's case, there is clearly a neck injury. But the idea that it was caused 62 years ago might not be correct. "I viewed the [story] with a little bit of scepticism because I thought it could have happened any time within the last five years and [Boyd's] memory might not be so perfect for some fall, knock or twist," says Harrison. Elderly people most commonly injure their neck in a fall, he adds.

But some doctors think that Boyd's spine must have partially healed itself while he was in a German prison, locked in a tiny cell and unable to move for long periods.

"Whenever his injury occurred, it has come into a naturally stable position and a situation when he wasn't in enforced labour or doing everyday activities would have led to a situation which was more likely to get stable," says Harrison.

www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/ ... 65,00.html

I would have thought the amount of healing would resolve the issue - best to stick with a good story!!!

 

[Leaferne]

Not sure if this counts, but...

Our upstairs neighbour has a ginger cat who is blind, and she often takes him outside in the yard so he can meander around the grass as she hovers watchfully nearby. One day I was doing something outside when she came out with him, and I asked her how he went blind, thinking he was diabetic or simply very old. "Vet did it," she replied. Eh?! She then went on to tell me that the vet was holding the cat and examining him and must have been pressing something on his neck or...? Then the vet remarked "I've blinded your cat." I'm not sure how you could do this, but I'm impressed that all she did was change vets; if it had been one of our animals, there'd be one less vet in practice today, you can count on that.

 

[GabrielRatchet]

Broken neck

Actually something similar happened to Buster Keaton while shooting his film THE GENERAL -- there's a scene where he jumps onto the spout of a water tank and is knocked to the ground by the water gushing out. The force of the fall broke his neck, but he didn't find out until a physical exam thirteen years later.

 

[TheQuixote]

More on Australia's *Doctor Death*, for full article follow the link:

Australia's 'Doctor Death'

Not often are doctors so bad at their jobs that nurses actually resort to hiding patients from them.
But that is precisely what happened at Queensland's Bundaberg Hospital after Dr Jayant Patel started working there in 2003, according to hospital staff.

The realisation of just how many botched operations were carried out by Dr Patel is only now coming to light.

An investigation was launched in March after nurse Toni Hoffmann complained about the large number of procedures performed by Dr Patel which had led to serious complications.

An interim report published on Friday recommended that he should be charged with both murder and negligence - if he is ever found.
[...]

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 080164.stm
Published: 2005/06/10 11:20:30 GMT

© BBC MMV

 

[TheQuixote]

Polish police nab bogus doctor who fooled NZ 10 July 2005
By GREG MEYLAN

Bogus psychiatrist Linda Astor - who misled two New Zealand hospitals and released a man who later decapitated his girlfriend - has been arrested in Poland for bank fraud.

Astor was arrested last week in a Warsaw post office after police recognised her face from a lengthy magazine article about her, published four months ago.

Astor used bogus qualifications to get a job with Hutt Valley Health as a consultant psychiatrist for nine months in 1996 and was briefly employed by Nelson Marlborough Health from late 1996.

In April 1997, as concerns about her performance grew, she left to attend an international health conference in the US and did not return.

In 1996, while at Hutt Valley Health, Astor released psychiatric patient Leslie Parr from care against the order of the courts.

The following year he killed his girlfriend, Fiona Maulolo, driving a chisel into her heart with a hammer and chopping her head off.

Parr was found not guilty on grounds of insanity. A later coroner's inquest in 2002 was strongly critical of the processes that allowed Astor to practise.

left Poland Zbigniewa Poddubiuk, with a general medical degree, to live in the US where he had a sex change and before moving to New Zealand.

Following her sudden departure from Nelson, she worked for five years in the US at various health centres before being arrested for shoplifting in 2002. The following year she was extradited to Poland.

The Polish press said she carried on her deceptions, gaining a job at a psycho-geriatric hospital in Tworki with references from Professor Zbigniewa Poddubiuk, her pre-sex change name.

That deception came to an end when a New Zealand television crew tracked her down last October, but before Astor fled, telling her employers she had left with her husband who had taken a high-powered job in Washington DC for US president George Bush.

Warsaw's largest daily newspaper, the Gazeta Wyrorcza, reported one of her colleagues at the Tworki hospital remembered her for stealing his stethoscope.

When police spotted Astor in the post office last week, they ran a background check and found she was wanted for obtaining a credit card using false documents. She has been charged with perjury and using false documents and could face up to eight years in prison.

Back in New Zealand, neither the Health Ministry or the Medical Council were interested in commenting.

"I think we have moved on from Linda Astor," head of the Medical Council Sue Ineson said, stressing it had changed its policies to prevent anyone with false documents gaining registration here.

Nelson police briefly reopened Astor's file after a campaign to have her extradited was launched by National MP Nick Smith but it was closed in 2002 following her US arrest. Smith said there were people in the Hutt Valley and Nelson still bearing the scars of her inappropriate medical treatments.

"The fact she has been arrested for further offences shows that the New Zealand government's negligence in not chasing the matter up at the time has resulted in there being even more victims."

He said the government could still seek her extradition and should do so.

Ministry of Finance and Trade (MFAT) spokesman Brad Tattersfield said extradition from Poland was theoretically possible under a 1935 extradition treaty.

MFAT had been unaware of the new charges against Astor and was making inquiries through Interpol.

stuff.co.nz

 

[drbastard]

July 21, 2005, 10:13AM

Surgeon liable for leaving needle in patient
By SAMUEL MAULL
Associated Press

NEW YORK — A judge found a physician negligent in a medical malpractice lawsuit accusing the doctor of losing a surgical needle in a patient's abdomen and then closing the opening after he couldn't find it.

State Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten found Dr. Douglas M. Heymann liable for the mishap during hernia surgery in 2001. The needle eventually lodged in 55-year-old Christopher Faas' liver, where it remains.

The decision was released Wednesday; the amount of damages Faas will be awarded will be decided at trial.

Bransten dismissed Faas' motion for a summary judgment against another surgeon, Dr. Joseph Iraci, and Lenox Hill Hospital, ruling those cases should be tried. The trials are scheduled for Aug. 2.

Heymann had called Iraci in to help him find the needle, and the two doctors spent hours searching for it, eventually closing up Faas' abdomen without locating it.

Faas' lawyer, Anthony Di Pietro, said Faas' health is at great risk as a result of the mishap: "Every time he feels a pain, he wonders if this needle is killing him," he said.

Michael Gallay, a lawyer for the defendants, declined to comment.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mp ... re/3276139[/quote]

 

[rynner2]

Too lazy right now to look up any links, but wasn't there a case once where some doctor, although claiming to offer sperm from brainy athletes, handsome philanthropists, etc, actually produced most of the sperm donations himself? :shock:

 

[jandzmom]

Here's the general story on the doctor who impregnated his patients (Read below for the inside sccop):

1991: Rogue Fertility Doctor Impregnates 75 Women (Criminal Hoax)

Dr. Cecil Jacobson, who operated a Virginia fertility clinic, was arrested for having impregnated 75 of his female patients with his own sperm. The women had been told that they would be impregnated via in-vitro fertilization with the sperm of an anonymous donor who matched their husband's characteristics. Instead, the good doctor secretly substituted his own sperm. Jacobson was sentenced to five years in jail.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/birth/birth.html

Inside scoop:
This guy was a prominent ob/gyn in the Vienna area (where I live) and saw regular ob/gyn patients as well. I saw him once for a gyn check up and he creeped me out so much that I never went back.

He was a Mormon and many of the women that he impregnated were from his stake (meaning church.) So as the years went on, it became apparent to the parents (and anyone with two eyes in their head) that many of these children had sadly came from the very ugly, yet strong, gene pool of Dr. Jacobson, and were half-siblings.

 

[rynner2]

Here's the general story on the doctor who impregnated his patients (Read below for the inside sccop):

1991: Rogue Fertility Doctor Impregnates 75 Women (Criminal Hoax)

Thanks for that back-up!

So remember, ladeez, you can only trust sperm if you get it - er - direct from source!

 

[ogopogo3]

SNL did a sketch on the good Doctor Cecil back in 92:

My 75 Kids

Cecil Jacobson.....John Goodman
Oldest Son.....Chris Farley
Uncle Charlie.....Dana Carvey


Announcer: 1976-1988. Dr. Cecil Jacobson runs a fertility clinic in Virgina, artificially inseminating unwitting patients with his own sperm.

March 4, 1992. Jacobson is convicted for having fathered as many as 75 children.

March 14, 1992, in a surprise move, the judge suspends sentencing, and assigns Jacobson the responsibility of caring for the 75 unwanted children and starring with them in a popular situation comedy."

Jingle: Raising 75 kids isn't easy
Takes a lot of patience, and a lot of love
All the sperm in the world couldn't tear us apart
It takes more than sperm, it takes heart.
When you're a sperm doctor
A sperm doctor
A doctor of sperm.

[ SUPER: Also Starring Jamie Farr ]

[ Cecil Jacobson enters living room, where his 75 kids are spread throughout ]

Cecil Jacobson: Kids, I'm home!

75 Kids: Hi, Daaaaaaaddd!!

Young Son: [ whimpering ] Hi, Dad..

[ all the other kids start crying, too ]

Cecil Jacobson: Whoa, settle down.. what's wrong with you kids?

Oldest Son: Oh.. Jeremy, Todd, Alice, Brian, Margaret and Steven had fights in school, with Jeff Mackenzie, Butch Pierce, Cheryl Hopp, Tommy Russell, the Cohen Sisters, and Henry Kahn.

Cecil Jacobson: Oh, boy...between Jeremy, Todd, Alice, Brian, Margaret and Steven having fights, and Harold, Chris, Quon Le and Mitch not making the football team, I've got a full night's work! [ laughs ] Well, that's fatherhood. Now, what was your fight about, Margaret?

Margaret: Wendy Cohen came up to me and said that you're weird, and that you should be taken out and shot.

Second Son: Yeah. And then they called you the Sperminator.

Cecil Jacobson: [ chuckles ] Well...I'll tell you something about Wendy Cohen - she's my daughter, too! [ laughs ] Okay, who has a birthday today? [ three sons yell out, "Me!" "Me!" "Me!" ] Well, come here, you guys! [ chuckles ] Gosh, you're all growing up...Aw, look at you, David! Why, I remember the day you were conceived - I was in my office, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue had just come out, and Elle MacPherson was on the cover. But I was in more of a Paulina mood that day...

Third Son: What about me, Dad?

Cecil Jacobson: Oh, you were an Elle MacPherson.

Fourth Son: How about us?

Cecil Jacobson: Well, that's an interesting story, uh...you were a Sears catalogue. I had misplaced my Swimsuit Issue.

Fifth Son: How about me, Dad?

Cecil Jacobson: Well, you were a Sears catalogue, also. In fact, you two were out of the same vial!

Sixth Son: What about me?

Cecil Jacobson: Well, you were an accident, I was reading Newsweek. I'm still not sure what happened.

Oldest Son: That's okay. We love you, Dad!

Cecil Jacobson: Aw, why you're the best kids a fertility doctor could ever trick his patients into having!

Uncle Charlie: [ enters from kitchen ] Holy geez! What's going on in here??

Cecil Jacobson: Well, what's wrong, Uncle Charlie?

Uncle Charlie: Well, look at this carpet! I just vacuumed it! Geez, you 75 kids, with your 150 shoes on! Holy smokes, Dr. Jacobson! Why couldn't you keep your hands out of your pants!

Cecil Jacobson: Now, come on, Charlie! It's perfectly natural.

Uncle Charlie: Don't you "natural", me! I like to spank it as much as the next guy, but I don't go aiming into a test tube!

Jingle: When you're a sperm doctor
A doctor of sperm.

[ fade ]

 

[ramonmercado]

Unicycling doctor fails to comfort

Unicycling doctor fails to comfort
By A Correspondent



A hospital’s aim to create a sense of comforting fun in its children’s ward backfired when a mother waited two hours to receive hospital treatment for her baby as a doctor rode back and forth on a unicycle. Paula Dadswell, 33, whose six-month-old son, James, had an ear infection, watched in disbelief as the young physician raced up and down corridors at South Tyneside District Hospital.
When his display came to an end, the doctor attended to the baby.



Asked why he had left them waiting for so long, the doctor said that he had only just bought the unicycle and needed to practise.

South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust sent a letter of apology to Miss Dadswell, a postal worker from Jarrow, stating that the unicycle had been removed. The letter says: “Being in hospital is stressful for anyone, particularly children, and we regularly provide diversions that are not directly related to medical care. Many parents have commented favourably on this approach and indeed about the unicycle.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ ... 72,00.html

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

4ft wire left in man's body for 10 years

07:38 Tuesday 1st November 2005

A builder has revealed that doctors left a wire measuring four feet in his body for ten years.

Steve Windless discovered the wire when he felt a sharp pain in his neck and could feel the wire sticking out.

According to The Sun Steve from Carshalton, Surrey, said: "I was gobsmacked. At first I'd thought it might be a nail that had got lodged in my skin at work. I couldn't belive it when the wire just kept coming out."

The wire had been left behind when he underwent a complex medical procedure a decade ago.

Doctors says that over the years the wire has embedded itself into an artery wall and it is far too risky to remove it.

www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1595305.h ... s.quirkies

 

[BIg_Slim]

Sadly this is the new type of clown/doctor we are all having to deal with
:cry:
A few years back i got my head introduced to half a brick at great speed
i went to casualty the next morning to have it stitched.
the clown/doctor hmmm'd and haaa'd at it for a bit and said
"you should really have came down last night you know"
to wich i replied
"i would have but you were closed and i was too drunk to drive"
:lol:

 

[tastyintestines]

Ants eat away woman's eye in hospital

Tue Nov 15,10:26 AM ET

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - A woman receiving treatment for diabetes at a state-run hospital in eastern India lost one of her eyes after ants nibbled away at it, officials said on Tuesday.
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The patient recovering from a post-surgery infection shrieked for help as the ants attacked her on Sunday night, but nurses told her it was normal to feel pain from the infection.

On Monday, the patient's family saw a gaping hole with swarming ants in it when they lifted the bandage on her left eye.

Authorities of the Sambhunath Hospital in Kolkata said they were probing the incident.

"It's not uncommon for ants to attack diabetic patients. We have set up a committee to investigate the unfortunate incident," hospital superintendent A. Adhikary said.

Scampering rats and stray cats and dogs sharing bed space with patients are not uncommon sights at India's overcrowded state-run hospitals that are used by millions of poor and middle-class people.

link

edited by TheQuixote: created hyperlink to stop page break

 

[Hot_Cross_Nun]

Maggots found on patient's face
A woman was shocked to find maggots crawling on her mother's face in a hospital's intensive care unit.

Nyree Ellison Anjos alerted staff at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital when she saw the larvae wriggling near a feeding tube attached to her mother's nose.

Christine Ellison died two days later, but the family is satisfied the maggot incident had no bearing.

The hospital has apologised to the family saying it was "an isolated and rare occurrence."

'Sincere apologies'

Mrs Ellison Anjos, from Robinswood in Gloucester, said the incident happened on a hot day in July.

"We saw there was a fly flying around there. Everybody was making it go away even the staff in the hospital," she said.

"The next day I went there and there was this yellow thing by her tube and I thought that didn't look right. She kept touching her nose and fiddling and we could see it was bothering her.

"I had a close look and could see little maggots moving in there."

A statement from the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "We would like to offer our sincere apologies to the family of Mrs Ellison for any distress caused by this incident.


"We can confirm that a very small number of maggots, each the size of a pin-head, were found.

"The incident was incredibly rare and we took immediate steps to prevent it from happening again.

"We have always been commended for our high standards of cleanliness and hygiene and we take any incident such as this extremely seriously."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/glou ... 541434.stm

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Scorpion find embarrasses Greek hospital in latest critter invasion case

Thu Dec 22,12:20 PM ET

ATHENS (AFP) - A live scorpion found in a Greek hospital operating room just weeks after a rat tail surfaced in the soup of another establishment has revived a long debate in Greece about the quality of public health services on offer.

The scorpion was discovered on Wednesday in the operating room of Venizelio Hospital, on the southern island of Crete, a health ministry official said on Thursday.

The ministry ordered an investigation to determine the cause of this intrusion, without excluding the possibility that the small arthropod simply crawled in out of the vegetation that surrounds the hospital.

Officials are more suspicious about the rat tail -- found in November in a pot of soup at the Athens psychiatric hospital of Dromokaitio -- amid reports that it appeared to have been sliced by a knife.

Mindful of potential sabotage, the authorities have sent the results of an internal investigation to the public prosecutor.

Occurring within weeks of each other, the two cases are the latest in a series of critter-related incidents undermining the Greek public health service's already fragile reputation.

Whilst in opposition in 2002, current Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis had raised an uproar after spotting a cockroach during a visit to a state hospital in Athens.

A few months later, a cat was caught roaming inside the operating room of another state hospital in the northern city of Salonika.

Repeated government efforts to overhaul the public health sector, and minimise long treatment waiting lists, have had limited success in eliminating a general disdain for state hospitals.

Though entitled to free public healthcare, Greek taxpayers pick private clinics whenever they can.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/greecehealthanimals