Articles Posted in Doctor, Doctor

Despite having examined the patient several times in 2002 and 2003, the doctor failed to notice that his patient had a 32 pound cyst! What did he tell her? Per the Otago [New Zealand] Daily Times online, that …

…she was overweight and prescribed weight-loss pills.

Wrong. Very wrong.

The woman, a 44-year-old mother of three, was eventually was taken to Christchurch Hospital in severe pain where the cyst was removed. The woman told The Press yesterday the cyst was cancerous and she needed an operation to remove her womb, ovaries and fallopian tubes.

What happened to the doctor?

[He] was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in 2006. He was censured and fined $22,500 but his name was suppressed to protect his practice and family.

Wow. That’s it? I agree with the victim:

“I’ve lost my insides, but he’s still practising,” she said.

She felt ill that the doctor continued to treat patients who were unaware of the misconduct finding. The patient called for a radical change from the health system so the names of medical professionals found guilty of professional misconduct were made public.

Here’s the source.

Although you usually get what you pay for, that does not apply in this case. As reported by radio station CJAD:

A 34-year-old St Constant woman has taken her doctor before the College of Physicians disciplinary committee for her more than $5 000 breast augmentation which only lasted four days.

They weren’t implants; Chantal Atkinson didn’t want those. Instead, Verdun doctor Denis Bisson suggested a fat injection.

All doctors know that it is unethical, at a minimum, to have a sexual relationship with a patient. And that, at a minimum, there is an appearance of impropriety when a boss has a sexual relationship with a subordinate. Well, as reported by Radio New Zealand, a family doctor in New Zealand had a sexual relationship with a patient, who also worked for him. (I’d wager that he’s married too.) As you would expect, he’s facing disciplinary proceedings. Here’s the source.

You would not believe the frequency with which doctors sexually abuse their patients. In doing research for these posts, I come across cases similar to this at least several times each week.

According to a woman examined by Arkansas Dr. Clarence Jay Arendall, here’s what happened, as reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

[The woman] said in the lawsuit filed March 12 that she visited Arendall for an ear infection in the past five years but that during the examination, he lowered her pants, touched her genitals, fondled her breasts and made sexual comments to her.

Remember the post the other day about the doctor who got a one week suspension for having a sexual relationship with a patient? Well, Dr. Mark Blaylock got a one month suspension for … putting a picture of a government official in the trash! For real. Dr. Blaylock is the chief medical officer at the Manguzi Hospital in South Africa. It would appear that health MEC [Member of the Executive Council] Peggy Nkonyeni took great offense at this most heinous crime. So who will really suffer as a result of Dr. Blaylock’s suspension? Per allAfrica.com:

Ironically, Blaylock will make more money working as a locum doctor in the private sector during this month’s suspension than he does as a senior doctor at the rural hospital.

A hospital source who asked not to be named said that, ultimately patients would suffer most as the hospital was short-staffed and Blaylock’s skilled would be greatly missed.

You are psychologist Andrew Jacobs, and you need a psychiatrist to treat your wife for depression. Not surprisingly, you refer her to the same Harvard-trained psychiatrist you’ve been referring people to for 10 years. Surprisingly, this man, Kansas Dr. Douglas Greenens, tells your wife that she is in an unhealthy marriage. He then has a sexual relationship with your wife while she is still his patient! You find out, so he ends the doctor-patient relationship, but soon thereafter, resumes the intimate relationship. Your wife then divorces you and marries … Dr. Greenens.

What punishment do you think the Kansas Board of Healing Arts handed down for this major violation of professional ethics? Before I tell you, let me also share with you some additional information that the Board had in its possession, as reported by The Topeka Capital-Journal:

Investigators with the Kansas board also have benefit of the Missouri healing arts board’s confidential 300-page report on Geenens’ out-of-bounds association with women. Geenens was publicly reprimanded by Missouri regulators and, to escape broader discipline, agreed in October to “retire” his license in that state.

Snap! 300 pages? On top of this incident? The punishment: a one-week suspension of his license! UFB! (Also, his practice will be supervised for 2 years, and he has to attend a course.(La di da.) Maybe he’s emerged from all of this a changed man?

Jacobs said Geenens bragged that a member of the healing arts board secretly promised him the board wouldn’t hand down a severe punishment. Meanwhile, Geenens filed an ethics complaint against Jacobs in Missouri, but the case was dismissed a year later.

Was that it for Greenens? He (or more likely, his insurer) took a relatively small hit:

Jacobs filed a civil lawsuit, later settled for $100,000, alleging Geenens prescribed psychiatric drugs to cause his wife to accept the doctor’s advances.

You can read more (a fair amount) here.

Remember when a bunch of people at UCLA Medical Center snuck a peak at Brittany Spears’ electronic medical records? No? I didn’t either. Well they did. As reported by California Healthline:

The Department of Public Health said 53 employees, including 14 doctors, at UCLA Medical Center breached Spears’ records on two occasions.

They were disciplined or fired, right?

None of the physicians quit or were fired.

What what what? None of the physicians? Then the nonphysicians must have skated by too, right? Nope.

18 [nonphysician] employees resigned, retired or were dismissed after the violations were discovered, according to UCLA data.

I’m guessing this is why:

In the past, UCLA has said physicians are overseen by a group of their peers, while other employees report to the human resources department.

Lovely. Here’s the source.

A helluva lot. As reported in The Brisbane Times:

Court documents reveal the GP [general practitioner], known only as DAP, began having sex with patients as early as 1987.

He was twice suspended from practicing in 1996 and 2001.

He … faced disciplinary action after admitting to maintaining sexual relationships with at least eight female patients, including the daughter of an elderly woman.

The Brisbane doctor, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, was twice jailed in 2005 for repeatedly sexually abusing his 10 and 11 year-old daughters.

His own daughters too! And after all that, the Health Practitioner’s Tribunal still would not yank his license. Instead, they suspended him for 5 years, concluding that his epilepsy affected his behavior! At long last, Dr. DAP’s rein of terror is over. The Brisbane Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the Tribunal’s suspension and banned this serial sexual predator from ever practicing medicine again. Here’s the source. (And it happens in the U.S. too.)

As reported by The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, here is the story of Dr. John Geoffrey Limbert of Victoria, British Columbia:

This family physician cared for a female patient for five years during which time she had two pregnancies. Subsequently, he established himself as a full-time sex therapist [I think you can guess where this is going] and she sought his professional advice. During this therapy he began to embrace her for progressively long periods of time. He advised her against having sexual relations with her husband and the marital relationship deteriorated considerably.

On one occasion during a pelvic examination he made inappropriate sexual remarks about her pelvic anatomy and breasts.

Later, they became involved in inappropriate activity related to the act of urination, which they called “water sports”, which was repeated up to three times weekly. The patient fell in love with the doctor. Ultimately the interaction was discovered by the doctor’s wife.

Then what?

The doctor apologized to the patient for his inappropriate behaviour, entered into therapy and consented to his therapist reporting his behaviour to the College.

So what happened to Dr. Limbert?

[He] was charged with professional misconduct for having engaged in sexual impropriety with a patient (among other things). He pleaded guilty to professional misconduct but not to incompetence. [Not misconduct! UFB!]

The Committee had no difficulty in accepting the plea of guilty and revoked the physician’s licence. Upon receiving the doctor’s undertaking not to appeal the decision, there was no need to consider the allegation of incompetence…

Here’s how Georgia Dr. Totada R. Shanthaveerappa promoted his “Integrated Medical Specialists” and “Integrated Chemotherapy Specialists” clinics, as reported in the Gwinnett Daily Post:

He advertised that his clinic practiced “safe and effective, nontoxic, scientifically-based alternative” medicine that could “cure or control most cancer and other chronic disease,” according to court documents.

Per the doctor’s lawyer, he admitted injecting 5 patients with DNP, a weed killer. But that’s not what he was busted for. It was health care fraud that did him in. Seems that when he submitted claims to insurance companies, he masked the drugs and treatments he actually provided. I wonder why … So what happened to Dr. Shanthaveerappa? His license was suspended back in 2005, and last week, he got 5 years probation (after already serving 400 days of home detention). That was for the insurance fraud. As for the weed killer injections – zippy. Apparently the authorities could not demonstrate that any harm came of it.