Articles Posted in Doctor, Doctor

I think it’s safe to say that virtually everyone has heard the expression “doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.” With that in mind, here’s an excerpt below from a Florida disciplinary case against Dr. G.K. Dwarka Nath:

37. The pathology report for the “colonoscopy” biopsy found benign squamous mucosa … The finding was inconsistent with tissue from the rectum or colon, but consistent with tissue from the vagina. It became clear that Respondent had scoped the vagina and not the rectum.

Incredibly, he didn’t even know that the scope was inserted in the wrong place! Sadly, the disciplinary complaint also describes the case of another patient who did not receive the appropriate care, and died. And what of Dr. Nath? He was fined $10,000 and put on supervised probation! Here’s a link to the Final Order with the above language. There’s another action on the disciplinary board’s website indicating that he was put on probation on 2/23/09, but that Order has not been posted.

Maybe I’ve seen too many “Nip/Tuck” commercials recently, but wouldn’t you think that the plastic surgeon who specialized in breast enhancement would be the one who left his spouse and was asking for a divorce? Such was not the case with former New Hampshire doctor James Kartell. As reported by The Eagle-Tribune:

Vajda, a North Andover resident, was dating Kartell’s estranged wife, Dr. Susan Kamm. She had moved in with Vajda and asked Kartell for a divorce.

Kartell had walked into Holy Family Hospital in Methuen on Feb. 23, 1999, with a loaded .38-caliber revolver and extra ammunition. Vajda was visiting Kamm, who was hospitalized with pneumonia.

That’s apparently the way Dr. Henry Kinch’s mind works. Mrs. B and her husband, Mr. B, were his patients for many years. Oh, and Dr. Kinch prescribed anti-depressants to Mr. B without seeing him. I’m sure you know where this is going …

Yes, you guessed it, Dr. Kinch (married) and Mrs. B (married 20 years, with kids) are in love and have been engaged in an affair. As reported by The Telegraph, when Mr. B confronted his wife, she said “that she was “maybe” having an affair with the doctor.” Um, it’s a “yes” or “no” question. Was Dr. Kinch any more forthcoming? Per Mr. B:

“He was very calm. He replied, basically, ‘Me and your wife love each other. We can’t help how we feel. I’m sorry but that’s how we feel and we are going to live together’.

“I then said, ‘How can you do this? You’re breaking up my family, and my children, a 20 year marriage. You are my doctor, my wife’s doctor and you will break up our marriage.’

‘Do you remember how you felt when you first met your wife and fell in love?’ I said, ‘Yes. Of course.’ He said ‘That’s what I have now. I can’t help the way I feel.’

So, we have a doctor sneaking around committing adultery, with a patient, who is also an employee, and improperly prescribing drugs to her husband [also a patient] and everything is just peachy keen. Have you no shame sir? [rhetorical question, of course]. Dr. Kinch’s dirty laundry is now being aired at a disciplinary hearing before the General Medical Counsel. Here’s hoping they are harder on him than he is on himself. To read more, click here.

If you or I ever try to pull the shit that Tennessee doctor Robert E. Grindstaff admitted to doing, fuhgeddaboudit. While he was in the hospital, here’s what went down, per The Kingsport Times-News:

[from August 3 through September 8] unlicensed personnel at Grindstaff’s Pinecrest Family Practice in Johnson City treated 115 patients by evaluating and questioning them about their needs and calling in refills for prescriptions without consulting a physician.

… during those dates If the patient required a Schedule II controlled substance, a member of Grindstaff’s staff took a note to Grindstaff to have him sign the prescription without his review of the patient’s records.

During the same time period, Grindstaff’s office billed patients for nursing visits despite the fact the doctor was not in the office and there are no nurses or staff members at the practice “with any formal training or experience in any medically related field.”

Really serious shit, right? Apparently not. Dr. Grindstaff did not even have his medical license suspended!

The board placed Grindstaff’s license on probationary status for two years, during which he must complete an educational seminar on prescribing controlled drugs, a comprehensive physician assessment, and a clinical education program.

The board further ordered Grindstaff to pay up to $1,000 of the cost of the health department’s prosecution of his case.

Excuse me, but la-di-fucking-da! This punishment was imposed notwithstanding that …

According to the board, Grindstaff’s actions violated both state statutes and medical practice acts governing gross malpractice, unprofessional conduct, prescribing and dispensing drugs, and medical record keeping.

Please, tell me it’s not just me. Absent some incredible mitigating factors, this guy should have had his license revoked.

I immediately thought of “Fight Club” when I read this story. As reported by Forbes.com:

For a time, Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend’s Lincoln Navigator.

Quoting Fawn Leibowitz’s “Animal House” friends, “Ewwwwww!” But is it legal?

Using fat to fuel cars might be environmentally friendly, but it’s definitely illegal in California to use human medical waste to power vehicles, and Bittner is being investigated by the state’s public health department.

To read more (a fair amount) click here. (One guess – What is the main ingredient in the soap in “Fight Club”?)

Continue reading →

Surgery is scary enough. I’d like to know that my doctor is certain that operating while on crack would be a bad thing. It’s not that California ear, nose and throat specialist Li Quang Nguyen actually operated while on crack, but check this out, as reported by the OC Register:

In July 2007, Dr. Nguyen was staying at the Howard Johnson Express in Huntington Beach. Police responded to a call that maids could not enter the locked room for cleaning. Police found Nguyen in a deep sleep. Police removed rock cocaine, a clear vial of liquid cocaine, a glass pipe and a lighter, the documents say.

Hard to say “what crack” in those circumstances, right?

Nguyen admitted to police that he had freebased cocaine the day before but said he was not “hooked,” according to the documents. In April, he pleaded no contest to drug charges and was ordered to enter an 18-month treatment program.

Okay. Looking good, until the disciplinary hearing for his medical license…

… during his hearing, Nguyen said he knew nothing about the drugs and “went so far as to testify that he did not know if it would be dangerous to perform surgery under the influence of cocaine.”

The board’s disciplinary documents say, “He claimed he could not know if this would be dangerous since he had never tried it, but such an assertion made by a trained physician is simply preposterous and rather frightening.”

What, what, what? Dr. Nguyen, who had a previous disciplinary action, had his license revoked. To read more, click here.

Perhaps this is the case with trauma doctor Martin Derusha, Jr. of Fort Worth, Texas. As to the doctoring, as reported in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, per Mr. Derusha,

“At this point in my career, I have no malpractice (claims), no problems at all in medicine.”

Maybe in medicine, but …

It’s often not pretty when relationships end. But what would these doctors do about the dog they both wanted? From the Bangkok Post:

A woman doctor shot at her boyfriend, who was also a doctor at the same hospital in Ubon Ratchathani province, after he refused to let her take care of their dog after the couple broke up.

Fortunately, the shots missed Supachoke Buddhacharoenlarp and hit his Jeep Cherokee instead. Dr Supachoke told police that he and Napawan Choppradit, 29, had been together for some time, but had decided to separate.

On Thursday, they met to settle matters, but could not agree on who would take care of the dog.

“Dr Napawan wanted to take the dog, but I refused. After arguing for a while, I got in the car, where the dog was being kept. She was angry and shot at us two times,” he said. Dr Napawan has been charged with attempted murder.

Attempted murder! Sweet fancy Moses! I’m thinking this won’t help her in canine custody court …

An obstetrician named Roman Hasil has amassed quite a record, both on and off the job. As reported by The Courier:

Dr Hasil committed one of the drink-driving offences, on February 6 at McGraths Hill, just weeks before he was suspended by the NSW Medical Board after a damning report into several botched operations he had performed in New Zealand. He is under investigation in NSW over at least 10 serious patient complaints from his time at Lismore Base Hospital from 2001 to 2005.

There’s plenty more:

Media reports in Slovakia last week also alleged that he drank on the job at two hospitals there as far back as the 1980s. [the 80s!]

Sally Hasil, who was married to Dr Hasil for 12 years, alleged that he was sacked from the Royal Hobart Hospital in March 1997 for not turning up to work because he was drunk but was rehired in November 1997.

Yesterday his ex-girlfriend, Sally Hock, who lived with him in Ebenezer, near Windsor, between January and June this year said that he frequently disappeared for days on drinking binges.

In May 2005 he was sacked from Melbourne’s Angliss Hospital for drinking while on call.

In July he was sentenced to a 12-month good behaviour bond for obtaining money by deception after leaving without paying a $40.30 bill at a Chinese restaurant for a meal and a bottle of wine. He was also sentenced for assaulting a woman in Windsor the same day as the restaurant incident.

He had already been sentenced to a year’s disqualification from driving and fined $250 in the Penrith District Court, on September 8, for high-range drink driving at McGraths Hill.

NSW court documents show that Dr Hasil was sentenced on September 29 in the Downing Centre Local Court for high-range drink driving in Cardiff in June and disqualified from driving for three years and put on a two-year good behaviour bond.

Whew. I’m out of breath! Here’s the source.

You might know the rest of the saying (“so shall ye reap”), and so might Pennsylvania dentist Thomas McFarland, Jr., but he paid it no heed. The “sewing” in this case was the dumping of about 300 used needles [and other medical waste] into the ocean, which washed up on the beach in Avalon, New Jersey – where McFarland owns a vacation home!

How did the authorities figure out it was McFarland? As reported in The Press of Atlantic City:

… using identifying codes on the medical debris, [investigators] zeroed in on a small number of dental practices where the debris could have originated… McFarland’s was one of them.