Mrs. Doctor Death

Boomerang - good luck to you and yours, man and dog

Atul Gatawande (I think, not sure of spelling) has had a series of articles in the New Yorker talking about this kind of thing. Quite scary. Certainly a part of my own skepticism and general patient-from-hell (or patient's-mom-from-hell)-ness.

And maybe her name too.

Thanks!

Thanks again, HofT!

I'm thinking when someone in risk management tells me to flee that I should indeed flee.

Boomer--

Do what you have to do. You must trust your doctor.

Bella Dea--

Not to worry--there are two Mr. Noddys. One long past and one very much present.

Though he appears to have got a glowing reference when he left Bundaberg.

I assume he has gone home to the USA?

It is very odd, since I gather people were NOT silent about him when he was in Bundaberg.....


The US folk he worked with/for must have been prepared to give him references, too, one assumes?

It seems almost unbelievable the number of people he has butchered...

It is unbelievable dlowan.

Our newpaper today had excerpts from several letters of reference given by his fellow Oregon doctors.

I don't think he was even in Australia for very long before people started raising a ruckus about him.

And I hate to hold his behavior against my doctor but when you read about this guy it was so clear that it wasn't just that he was a crappy doctor - he was like he was maliciously crappy.

He's a monster and I just can't help letting that reflect on the way I feel about her.

Tough one Boomer.

Er - assume you have choices?

Has she just appeared, or have you known her for ages?

It would be easy to change doctors. All you have to do is call.

She's been my doctor for about six years but I really only see her once a year for my physical since I'm pretty healthy.

I chose her out of a lineup when we changed our insurance to this HMO. She was one of the few women available and I liked the fact that she is Indian. I have had several Indian doctors in the past and they seem to take a more holistic approach to health than the typical American doctor. She is like that too which one thing I really liked about her.

I checked the paper - he was only in Australia for two years and doctors had been raising the alarm for at least a year.

In those two years he has been linked witht he death of 87 patients.

He was in Oregon for 12 years and linked to the death of 3 patients. His license was restricted in 2000 saying he "had engaged in unprofessional or dishonorable conduct and gross or repeated acts of neglignce".

The restrictions placed on him did not allow him to preform certain kids of surgeries and required him to get a second opinion on complex cases.

Seems like a pretty light punishment, does it not?

Blimey - I wonder if Oz knew that?


I suspect heads will roll in the Queensland Health Department.

It looks either like he deteriorated rapidly, or dead oreganians tell no tales - and neither do oregon doctors.

There is talk here of hundreds of patients mangled - but rumours have a life of their own....

According to our paper, he presented six letters of recommendation andhe didn't tell them that he had been restricted and they never bothered to check his references.

So heads will probably roll.

If he killed 87 patients he most likely mangeld a bunch.

Some of the stories they've had in our paper are so horrendus that the bit I posted on page one of this thread is "nicer". Apparently the man was not too fond of anasethic.....

He could have been one of the doctors who swipe patients painkillers and other drugs.

Yikes.

Still, she is a separate person. This will devolve, I think. She may or may not be under some sway by him, but is unlikely, I posit, to be creepy herself, though, agh, I don't know. But given the info about him in the news, I am guessing her life will get more complicated fast.

I agree with Set and others that there has been a god culture re mds for a long time. I saw it wane when I was first in med research/technology but right about that same time liability concerns ratcheted up and I suppose the closure behavior reclosed. I don't know that for sure though, as I am out of the med field now since 1980.

Yes, osso, that's why I'm asking what others might do in a similar situation.

Plus, I know in India that marriages are often arranged. Could be that she never picked this guy on her own.

If yesterdays article clicked it all into place for me, I'm sure it did for others too. I imagine her life will be unmanagable for a while.

My present thought is to talk with her before making a decision, by going to the dr for a real but not super-serious issue, perhaps in a few weeks.

My own med care has been that I've had Blue Cross insurance at the highest possible deductible (it's killing me financially), and I can pick any md out of the phone book, though they won't pay as much if the md is not on their provider list and I gather some mds don't accept BC. My point is that since I go to one office for general stuff and others for specialist matters, I don't have to depend on the general place to get in to see a specialist - which I guess you do if you belong to an HMO system. That makes me think your dependence on the woman is slightly different than mine on my internist's office, so I understand just punting to another md, given that she is the wife of the complete turkey.

But - Set is right that in this day and age of internet research access, one shouldn't take medical care as always correct . We should be looking up corroborative info all the time anyway. And you have seen her for six years.. and have been satisfied.