This weekly roundup features arrests, criminal proceedings, and other reports alleging improper or questionable conduct by healthcare professionals.
New evidence from DNA tests confirmed suspicions that a Dutch fertility specialist who called himself “a pioneer in the field of fertilization” impregnated dozens of patients with his own semen, fathering 49 children before he was taken to court in 2017, and died later that year at the age of 89. (BBC News)
A massive malpractice suit cost a New York hospital $110.6 million for a case in which a woman’s asthma attack resulted in permanent brain damage following excessive carbon dioxide buildup and subsequent brain swelling. Now confined to a wheelchair and with slurred speech, the woman and her lawyers argued that the Bronx hospital failed to transfer her to a nearby facility offering extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) as her situation worsened. (New York Daily News)
On Long Island, police said they found an NYU Langone neurologist in his car holding a glass pipe to his mouth with a “pharmacy’s worth” of prescription pills in the vehicle. The physician’s lawyer told the New York Post that he was scheduled to enter a drug-treatment program.
Dozens of medical professionals — including 31 physicians, 8 nurse practitioners, and others — across Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia were charged with the illegal distribution of 32 million pain pills. One physician — the “Rock Doc” — is alleged to have exchanged opioids and fentanyl patches for sex while another is being charged in connection with an opioid-related death. (Washington Post, The Tennessean)
In New Mexico, a psychiatrist was charged with criminal sexual penetration and other felony charges after six women came forward with allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct. One patient said the 72-year-old doctor prescribed her dextroamphetamine-amphetamine (Adderall) to help her stay skinny and offered up painkillers if “she would cooperate with him sexually.” (KVIA)
A Dallas man who previously had been caught posing as a doctor and stealing an ambulance (before crashing it) was charged with impersonating a public servant after he masqueraded as an EMT student, showing up at a local firehouse and telling firefighters he was there to shadow them on medical-related calls. After they became suspicious, “they confronted him, and he took off running,” according to the story in WFAA.
Shawn Parcells, once known for his role assisting in the private autopsy of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, faces criminal charges of theft and desecration after allegedly misleading his clients into believing he was a physician, a pathologist, and a medical examiner. (ABC, KCTV)
A Manhattan anesthesiologist who allegedly prescribed 85,427 oxycodone pills to a single patient in 2013 alone was charged with distributing a controlled substance in connection with said patient’s fatal 2017 overdose, which occurred less than a month after the physician prescribed 150 fentanyl doses and 950 oxycodone pills. Independently, the pain-management clinic owner and former top Subsys prescriber was indicted last year for his alleged role in the Insys kickback scheme. (Patch)
An osteopathic physician is reportedly being investigated by health officials for her role in the cult-like group NXIVM, which was accused of blackmailing and enslaving initiates in upstate New York. Officials began the probe after receiving a complaint in 2017 alleging she used a cautery pen to brand the initials of the group’s co-founder as part of an “initiation ceremony.” (CBS)
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Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
