"This Isn't Some Marginal Flaky Physician"

More in the New York Times on the case of the Louisiana surgeon accused of "euthanizing" patients at a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina .

Colleagues and family members are quickly coming forward to defend Dr. Anna Pou.

The piece in the Times sheds more light on the horrific conditions in the hospital after the storm . . . the problems that were faced in evacuating critically-ill & dying patients . . . and the character of a doctor who volunteered for storm duty taking take of very sick patients (when others ran) - many of whom she did not know.

Just because these patients had never had Morphine or Midazolam before does not mean they did not need those medications when they were given. And "trace" amounts of the drugs in a pathology report do not a "lethal cocktail" make.

My initial reaction when I first heard of the charges was, no doubt, like that of many others. But even then, I wondered not just about the actions of the doctor accused of wrongdoing - but those who supposedly knew what was going down and did not stop it. Eyes averted. Hands in pockets. Ears covered. Mouths closed. I know a little bit about that. And what about those who did not stay to take care of their patients - the ones whose work Dr. Pou was doing?

And what about the responsibility of the hospital administrators . . . some of who seem awfully eager to sell Dr. Pou down a flooded street in the Attorney General's affidavit.

Some bloggers have criticized me for looking at things through the prism of my own experience. But I don't know how else to look. I know something of doing my duty only to being abandoned by the state and federal governments I served . . . left to fend for myself after the lawyers got creative and nasty (and just didn't trouble themselves at all with the letter or spirit of the law). I've seen a lot of ugly stuff in my eight years on the road in North Carolina.

After another fairly recent clinical experience that mirrors what happened in Asheboro eight years ago . . . one that (yet again) I cannot publicly talk about . . . but this time, handled very appropriately, it's a question I've recently posed to the NC Medical Board: I was left hanging out to dry in Asheboro because I did my job (in the face of threats and intimidation) the way I was supposed to do it, AND I reported what happened. Why does the state of North Carolina require duties of physicians it does not vigourously protect and defend?

Dr. Anna Pou was abandoned to a medical hell on earth. I wonder where the Louisiana Attorney General was during that time? Some air-conditioned command center?

There's little doubt that Anna Pou will be talking to her Medical Board (and it's a Board that has a reputation for being harsh to the ladies). She cannot practice while charges are pending. No money will be coming in to pay for her defense, or fend off the sharks in the water.

Meanwhile, the general public remains completely in the dark about what is really going down in medicine. After all, it happens in the dark.

And who cares about one "rich" doctor?

Afternoon Addendum: More from the NYT on the ethical dilemas Dr. Pou faced.