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Fri 27 May, 2005 10:18 am
I have a suspicion that my doctor is the wife of the butcher of Queensland.
An article in the paper today says that his wife lives in my town, works as a doctor and I use the same HMO that Dr. Death was a physician for.
She is in the same age bracket and has the same name.
She's been a pretty good doctor but I confess to being a wee bit creeped out.
Even if she is, I know this doesn't automatically make HER a bad doctor but.... you know.....
<shudder>
Am I being unreasonable/irrational?
Should I ask some questions?
What would you do?
Who is Dr. Death? What did the butcher of Queensland do? It does sound creepy, though Mrs. Doctor Death most likely has her issues with it, too.
"Dr. Death" is a really terrible surgeon who killed off a lot of his patients with his errors and his callousness.
Bad, bad, horrible things.
I was "eh" until "same name."
Hmm.
If someone is innocent and just had the misfortune to be married to a criminal it's not fair for that person's livelihood to be ruined.
But eek.
I think you're probably allowed to ask, the question is what then. She says, yes, that's me, and looks at you levelly in an "and..." sort of way, and you say...?
dagmar - here's a bit from one article:
Quote:The problems continued: improper procedures, needless delays which caused deaths and neglect leading to infections. One day, a patient was brought in to the operating theatre for investigative surgery and staff rushed out looking for mouth swabs. Patel had flushed the wrong end of the bowel and faeces were coming out of the patient's mouth.
Another patient, Des Bramich, was admitted after a caravan fell on his chest. A needle had to be inserted into his diaphragm to remove fluid from a sac near the heart. Patel caused internal bleeding after stabbing at it over 50 times. When he heard a team was flying in to airlift Bramich to a better-equipped hospital in Brisbane, he delayed the process and by the time the team arrived, Bramich died.
Every time a patient transfer to Brisbane was recommended, Patel would yell, denigrate Hoffman and other ICU staff, and threaten to resign, because he felt that transfers would draw attention to his high complication and infection rate. Beryl Crosby, Patel's patient and convener of the Victims Support Group, told The Week: "Patel was often carelessly leaving gauze, needles and clamps in patients."
He had an alarmingly high complication and infection rate when inserting catheters in patients, "because he was not washing his hands", said Hoffman, who attributes 20 deaths to Patel. When renal specialist Dr Peter Miach insisted his patients have their catheters inserted at a private hospital, the complication rate dropped instantly.
More puzzling was the fact that Patel would visit the hospital on weekends and holidays looking for patients. Nurses began hiding patients from him. To hide his mistakes, Patel made sure there would not be any autopsies. He got junior doctors to write death certificates and released bodies prematurely. The Queensland Nurses Union believes there were at least five such cases. At times, Patel would enter a false cause of death. At one stage, according to staff, senior specialist Dr Dieter Berens would ask Patel: "Whom have you killed today?"
I know you're right soz, I can't hold his behavior against her, but I am still a bit creeped out.
There is certainly nothing wrong with being concerned about your physician's competence. County medical associations are required to maintain information on their members, although they are often less than enthusiastic about revealing what they know. Nevertheless, it might help your peace of mind to contact such an organization, or to speak confidentially to support staff (a nurse or physician's assistant) to ease your mind about this doctor's competence.
It does give me peace of mind simply knowing that my doctor is not a surgeon but it does bother me that she might have gone to the same medical school as this guy.
The mistakes this guy made are just unbelievable.
I imagine the HMO is getting a million calls about this same thing. I'll bet if I wrote to member's services they'd have some answers - at least some kind of stock response. Maybe I'll try that.
Or maybe I'm just feeling itchy about my HMO. It was rated best in the country by Consumer Reports, which was reassuring, but after reading today about all of this guy's collegues writing him letters of recommendation I'm really starting to wonder.
sozobe wrote:
If someone is innocent and just had the misfortune to be married to a criminal it's not fair for that person's livelihood to be ruined.
Ain't fair but.....is it better to be fair and dead or unfair and safe?
geeze louise, why did they keep him with such a horrid record? he should have been fired and sued long ago. what's he doing now? i hope NOT operating?
Nobody knows where he is right now.
He ran away from Austrailia.
His license had been restricted here and also in New York (I think) so he'd left a trail of mistakes.
Why he was allowed to continue to practice at all I don't know.
I would hate to be held "possibly guilty" of my ex-husband's sins and shortcomings. After all, there are many good and valid reasons why I filed for divorce.
Noddy24 wrote:I would hate to be held "possibly guilty" of my ex-husband's sins and shortcomings. After all, there are many good and valid reasons why I filed for divorce.
Oh, I didn't know he was an ex. Sorry... I guess I blocked that out.
I would imagine she has had people ask her.
Is there any one you can contact to get her history as a doctor?
I don't think he is an ex. The newspapers refer to her as his wife, not his ex-wife.
I know intellectually that she isn't responsible for what he has done. That's why I wondered if I were being irrational.
And I probably am.
But I still feel creepy.
I looked her up in the online medical directory. She went to school in India and did her training in New York.
I think it IS her.
I really feel sorry for her more than anything else but that doesn't get rid of my goosebumps.
In one regard, doctors are no different than mechanics--if you don't trust them, do not avail yourself of their services. It is even more crucial when the issue is one's health. Never ever accept that your doctor knows more about you than you do, or has any authority over your body. If you are in the least dissatisfied with a doctor at any time, you are perfectly reasonable to insist upon knowing more about them, or of receiving your medical care from someone else.
It has been asked here why a physician whose skills are questioned would be allowed to continue to practice, or even have the endorsement of other doctors. The answer is simple, medical practice is the most closed "guild" now in existence, and few if any doctors are ever willing to publicly question their fellows. It destroys the demigod-like mystique of the physician, upon which so many of them rely in managing their patients (often in an offhand and arrogant manner), and behind it lurks the haunting fear of suffering a terrible consequence from the results of a simple error which did not arise from incompetence.
Far too many adults become trusting toddlers in the hands of their physicians. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't have to be that way.
Setanta said it in a more literary manner - I'll say it in one word: flee!!
I always find Setanta's logic and eloquence very persuasive. He's right, when it comes to health care we can't afford to be sheep and we have to ask questions.
And that be she.
How in the heck did you find that, HofT?
Setanta, what you said about doctors being a secretive guild --
Is that a mostly American thing? From the articles in our paper every day, it didn't sound at all like the Austrailian doctors were trying to protect this guy.
Oh, and HofT, if you would, please edit out her phone number from your post. There are some nuts on this board and I really don't want any harm to come to this woman.
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