NEWS STORY Mar 04, 2010
Some of you may remember this case from seven years ago, where a nurse named Charles Cullen was convicted of killing multiple patients in 10 different hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Now, he and some of the hospitals he worked for face civil charges for wrongful death.
The families of the deceased are suing the hospitals for failing in their duties to report to authorities the dangerous activities of Cullen. The hospitals defend themselves by saying that when the cases were viewed in isolation, they were not severe enough to warrant reporting. Now having put all the pieces together, they see how severe the situation really was–but hindsight is always 20/20.
Here’s a little background on Charles Cullen:
From 1998 to 2003, Cullen managed to kill dozens of patients, mostly through lethal injections of drugs such as digoxin and epinephrine. While the total number is uncertain, the count goes as high as 45 victims that he killed, not including attempted murders.
Many of the hospitals he worked at grew suspicious of him and conducted internal investigations, usually resulting in termination of his employment. However, he would simply move on to the next hospital. Because of the heavy demand for nurses, he was easily able to hop around like this for so many years. He claimed that his motive was to end the suffering of the patients that he killed.
Throughout his life, Cullen also attempted to commit suicide multiple times and underwent several psychiatric treatments. He was finally arrested and charged with murder in December 2003. He is currently serving 18 consecutive life sentences in a New Jersey state prison.
You can read more about this news story at NJ.com.
NEWS STORY Mar 01, 2010
A doctor in Pennsylvania had his medical license suspended when authorities discovered blood stains on the floor of his clinic, along with baby parts in jars and recliners as recovery beds.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran a clinic called Women’s Medical Society in West Philadephia. The FBI and DEA raided the clinic last week to see if he was prescribing painkillers illegally. The 69-year-old doctor has not been criminally charged. However, he has had numerous malpractice suits filed against him. In addition, just recently, two women died after having abortions performed at his clinic.
What’s more, two medical aides working for Dr. Gosnell were advertised as doctors, even when they were not! A sign at the clinic identifies Steven Masoff and G.A. Arthur as MD’s, even though they do not carry any medical license in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Gosnell is not board-certified in any specialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties. His license has been suspended for 30 days pending a full investigation.
You can read more about this story at AP News and Philly.com.
Feb 23, 2010 | 7 Comments
Case Synopsis
Just a Broken Jaw
Back in June 3, 1994, Patrick had just been involved in a car accident and was rushed to the emergency room for treatment. He was lucky. All he had were several bruises, a few cuts, and minor scrapes—oh, and also a broken jaw.
The emergency room doctor arranged for an oral surgeon consultation. To fix Patrick’s jaw, the oral surgeon would need to wire his mouth shut with oral fixation wires.
Typically, these wires are passed between the upper teeth and lower teeth to serve as an internal brace to stabilize the jaw for healing. (Just like what a cast would do to stabilize a broken bone.) Because his jaw would be wired shut, Patrick would need to eat and drink through a straw with food passing between the teeth. Common menus would include yogurt, milkshakes or even blended hamburgers.
NEWS STORY Feb 16, 2010
Back in August of 2006, a 14-year-old girl named Danieal Kelly starved to death under her mother’s care. Her death initiated investigations on the city, state, and federal levels. Danieal’s mother went to jail for third-degree murder, Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services fired some employees, and now four social workers are on trial in federal court for failing to oversee her condition as they were paid to do.
From 2000 to 2006, Philadelphia paid the now defunct MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, Inc. about $3.7 million to monitor 500 homes of at-risk and poor families. MultiEthnic’s co-founders, Mickal Kamuvaka and Solomon Manemela, and two staff social workers, Julius Murray and Mariam Coulibaly, are now on trial for fraud.
Danieal, who suffered from cerebral palsy, was found dead on her bed, malnourished and with bedsores infested with maggots. MultiEthnic was supposed to check up on her periodically to make sure she was being well-cared for. But according to the government, that didn’t happen. Instead, they accuse MultiEthnic for lying and fabricating fake documentation of visits to at least 3 different homes, including Danieal’s.
The case gets more complicated. The lawyers for the two co-founders contend that the two social worker employees lied to them. They claim that the social workers said that they had visited the homes when they actually did not–and that the co-founders can’t be held responsible for the social workers’ crimes.
The lawyers for the two staff workers, on the other hand, insist that they indeed visited Danieal’s home and that her mother actively concealed her true condition by covering her up in blankets. They also point out that other agencies, such as the Department of Education, visited the home prior to the death without noticing anything wrong.
Five other social workers from MultiEthnic have already pleaded guilty.
NEWS STORY Feb 15, 2010
A nurse who was on trial for illegally using information to report a doctor to the medical board was acquitted last week by a jury.
Anne Mitchell, a former nurse administrator at Winkler County Hospital, was on trial after she and her fellow nurse Vicki Galle wrote an anonymous letter to the Texas Medical Board. In the letter, they expressed their concerns regarding Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles. The county sheriff, a friend of Dr. Arafiles, investigated and discovered their identities.
Although Vicki’s case was later dropped, Anne went to trial. Prosecutors attempted to prove unsuccessfully that Anne had a personal motive for reporting the doctor.
Anne and Vicki have filed a federal lawsuit against the doctor, Winkler County, the sheriff, and prosecutor for vindictive and malicious prosecution.
This is an update of a previous news story: Texas Nurse on Trial for Reporting Malpractice.
NEWS STORY Feb 11, 2010
A 66-year-old man from San Francisco pleaded not guilty to 51 felony counts related to pretending to be a skin doctor.
Timothy Syed Andersson is accused of calling himself a medical doctor, “Dr. Syed,” and treating patients without a license at his personal home. He told them, falsely, that he taught at Stanford University and UC San Francisco. He aired advertisements on Indian radio stations and had ads on the Internet.
“Dr. Syed” apparently once told a child’s parents that their child had cancer. Also, he supposedly treated a woman’s varicose veins by repeatedly sticking a needle in her legs and drawing blood without any anesthesia. He supposedly collected around $75,000 through his charade.
Although immigrating to the United States from Sweden, Andersson is originally from Pakistan. While it’s possible he has had some medical education abroad, he is not licensed to practice medicine in any state, according to the district attorney. (In the United States, medical licenses are granted by each individual states.)
Andersson is now being held on a $1 million bail with a hearing set for March 11.
NEWS STORY Feb 08, 2010
Many whistle-blowers have their lives turned up-side down, losing their job and reputation. Who knew that they could also face prison time? This is exactly what Anne Mitchell, a nurse up until last year, is going through right now. She faces up to 10 years in prison for a felony charge of “misuse of official information.”
While working for Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Texas as a nurse administrator, Anne noticed multiple breaches of patient care by an ER physician, Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles, Jr. She complained to the hospital authorities, and Dr. Arafiles was reprimanded on several occasions. However, she felt that she was being brushed off. So, with the help of her fellow nurse Vickilyn Galle, she wrote an anonymous letter to the Texas Medical Board.
In the letter, the nurses point to six different cases that concerned them greatly regarding the doctor. Apparently, one time, Dr. Arafiles sutured a rubber tip onto a patient’s finger for protection after it was crushed (definitely not a typical remedy). Another time, he performed a failed skin graft in the ER, even though he had no surgical privileges. The letter also mentioned that Dr. Arafiles regularly e-mails his patients to buy certain herbal supplements that he personally sold.
If the letter was anonymous, then how was she found out? Well, soon after the Texas Medical Board informed Dr. Arafiles that he had a complaint against him, he complained about being harassed to the county sheriff, Robert L. Roberts, Jr., who also happened to be his former patient (he says that the doctor saved him after a heart attack). Together, they were able to deduce who wrote the letter and obtained search warrants for the nurses’ computers on which they found the letter.
The nurses were fired from their jobs and also arrested last June.
The prosecution alleges that the complaint was made in bad faith in order to stain the name of Dr. Arafiles. This case is largely unprecendented. In fact, after an investigation by the state last September, it was found that the nurses were unfairly fired for reporting on valid violations.
Even before working at the county hospital, Dr. Arafiles already was under restriction by the medical board. Because of failure involving a weight-loss clinic he used to work at, Dr. Arafiles was not allowed to supervise physician assistants or nurse practitioners. As it is difficult to get doctors to move out to such a remote area of Texas, the hospital administrators decided to overlook his history and was slow to fire him based on complaints by the nurses.
Although charges against Vickilyn has since been dropped, Anne, who is now 52, currently awaits trial set to begin today for “misuse of official information.”
