Medical: November 2009 Archives

Capt. Michael Fontana is accused of killing three terminally ill patients last summer at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio.  The nurse faces three counts of murder, or possibly lesser charges of attempted murder or negligent homicide, as well as conduct unbecoming an officer.

Army Lt. Col. Pedro Lucero, a critical care physician at Brooke Army Medical Center and an medical expert witness for the government, said the 70 milligrams of morphine Dorothy Gray received in two doses 70 minutes apart caused her death.  But Dr. Robert Bux, a forensic pathologist and defense witness, disagreed with a ruling by the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office that Gray's death was a homicide. He said her blood samples were “shaky” because he didn't know what part of her body they came from.

Dr. Robert Fine, an expert on palliative care and internal medicine for the defense, said medication orders were vague and inconsistent. More disturbing, he said, was a decision doctors made after consulting family members to take Dorothy Gray, a stroke victim, off a ventilator.

For more, see mysanantonio.com.

Superior Court Justice Daniel Procaccini is presiding over the wrongful death suit against Rhode Island Kent Hospital.  Medical expert witness Dr. John Schreiber said that for everything Dr. Kelli Naylor, co-defendant in the suit, did, she did nothing to treat what was indicated as an acute cardiac crisis by an electrocardiogram (EKG) that was available to her at 5:45 p.m. on July 26, 2006. He said everything that she did between the time the EKG was available and the time Woods was pronounced dead at 7:30 p.m. did nothing to address an “anterior infarction” on the results that appeared above a banner-like line above the EKG that clearly stated in capital letters, “ABNORMAL EKG,” indicting an acute cardiac event.

For more, see www.warwick.com.

The House Judiciary Committee has accused the NFL of neglect in denying the link between concussions and brain injury.  Retired pro football players have several times the national rate of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory afflictions than normal populations. Former players between the age of 30-40 experience memory-related  diseases at a rate of 19 times of that of men who didn’t play, according to an analysis of a study by the New York Times.   

Medical expert witness Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University School of Medicine showed the committee images of brains of dead football players and testified that all 11 of the former collegiate and professional football players she had examined showed “severe” signs of degradation. Before they died, many of the players had suffered from memory loss and emotional disturbances.

Excerpted from spotlight.vitals.com.

Judge Barbara Walther ruled that DNA expert Amy Smuts, a forensic analyst at a respected DNA lab, is qualified to testify about paternity tests indicating a nearly 100 percent probability defendant Raymond Merril Jessop fathered a child with a 16-year-old in November 2004 at the Yearning for Zion Ranch.  The DNA evidence is central to the prosecution’s mission to prove Jessop sexually assaulted an underage girl he’d taken as a “purported wife.” Prosecutors allege Jessop had one legal wife and eight “purported wives.”

Jessop, 38, and 11 other members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints face criminal charges. Jessop is the first to go to trial, and evidence seized during a historic April 2008 raid at the YFZ Ranch is expected to weigh heavily in the prosecution’s mission to prove those charges.

Source gosanangelo.com.