An AP news story reports that 28 states are considering expanding the role of nurse practitioners due to the shortage of doctors. Their new authorities would include prescribing medication and seeing patients without doctor supervision.
Full news story from the Associated Press.
What do you think?
In August of last year, Redondo Beach Police got suspicious when someone attempted to sell Adderall, a controlled psychiatric drug, on Craigslist. After being arrested, the seller told the police that he obtained the drug from a psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan Kuemmerle. The investigation began.
Police began interviewing Dr. Kuemmerle’s patients, as well as sending undercover officers with recording devices to pose as patients.
According to authorities, his office manager, Antonie Phillips, would talk to patients about what drugs they wanted, and then Dr. Kuemmerle would simply sign the prescription prepared by Phillips. Sometimes Dr. Kuemmerle would sign several prescriptions and tell the patient to fill them at different pharmacies to avoid suspicion. The patient would then pay in cash.
As a result of the investigation, just yesterday, Dr. Kuemmerle and Phillips were finally arrested and are expected to appear in court today for pleas.
You can read more about this news story from the LA Times.
Being a male nurse at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Redwood City may have its perks–or so thought Carlos Magallanes Alcober before he was caught.
Alcober, age 34, pled not guilty to one misdemeanor count of illegal videotaping.
As a night shift nurse, Alcober would place a tiny digital camera in an employee bathroom. Covering it with surgical tape, he would leave a small hole to record whatever happened in there.
The video camera was found by the last of five women who were recorded. Unfortunately for Alcober, he was also in the video.
According to Kaiser, Alcober no longer works there. The incident was also reported to the California Board of Registered Nursing.
Alcober is scheduled to go to trial in July. If convicted, he would face 1 year in jail.
On Wednesday, 14 nurses and aides were arrested and charged with endangering their patients, felony falsification of business records, and various public health misdemeanors. They all worked for Northwoods Rehabilitation and Extended Care Facility in Troy, NY. All 14 are under suspension by the facility.
Hidden cameras were put into patients’ rooms and recorded six week’s worth of footage, allegedly showing neglect in their duties to care for the elderly residents in the facility. This included failing to turn patients, change their clothes, and administer medication. However, records were apparently falsified to reflect that these actions were done. There was even a faked medical exam.
More information is available from Channel 4 WIVB below (current as of last night):
We would like to wholeheartedly thank all the great and awesome doctors out there for all your hard work! Remember to give your favorite doctor a red carnation to appreciate what they have done for you!
It was January 20, 2005 during the opening minutes of a basketball game between Eastern Connecticut State University and Worcester State. Suddenly, the crowd realized something was wrong when one of Eastern Connecticut’s players, Antwoine Key, collapsed on the floor.
Emergency paramedics attempted to revive the college senior as he was rushed to the hospital, but to no avail. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The medical examiner determined Antwoine suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), where the heart muscle becomes thick so that it becomes harder for blood to leave the heart. It is a known cause of sudden death amongst athletes.
In 2001, Antwoine had been given a physical exam by Dr. Dorina Abdulah. She signed a report that Antwoine was in perfect health despite detecting a heart murmur (a sign of possible HCM). To be safe, she scheduled Antwoine for a cardiac echo, which would have caught his HCM–but Antwoine never showed up to the appointment. He went on to play basketball unaware of his condition.
From then until his death in 2005, he was seen by 5 more doctors, but his condition was never discovered.
After Antwoine’s death, his parents sued Dr. Abdulah, claiming that she should never have cleared Antwoine to play basketball to begin with. This past Friday, a jury found the doctor negligent and awarded the couple $1.6 million in damages.
On September 26, 2002, Joy O’Shea Woomer arrived at the home of Brent Weaver, who was an 11-year-old boy with special needs. It was her first night as his private in-home nurse, and his family instructed her to call if there were any issues.
Then, for reasons still unknown, Brent’s family says Woomer injected Brent with a lethal dose of morphine, ending his life. According to prosecutors, it was because she was tired.
At trial, Joy testified that she never gave Brent any medications and had no reason to kill him. Nevertheless, on January 14 of this year, a jury convicted her of three charges: third-degree murder (prosecution had sought first-degree), drug delivery resulting in death, and delivery of a controlled substance. Despite the conviction, Joy still has tremendous support from people who say she was a nice person and could never have done the crime.
Yesterday, she was sentenced to 7-20 years in prison and asked $6,715 in restitution to the victim’s family.
You can read more about this news story from Lancaster Online.
Did Dr. Fortuna just make some white lies, or commit plain fraud? No one got hurt in this case, or maybe everyone got hurt because of what he did. Read this story and share what you think.
When Patrick went in for jaw surgery, he didn’t think it would be life-threatening. Actually, he was right. It wasn’t the surgery that he needed to worry about.
Cosmetic surgery is big money, but it wasn’t big enough for Dr. Harrold. He wanted more. After all, no one would care if he just took a bit more from the big, bad insurance companies, right?
