You'd think anyone who invests time, effort, and money into becoming a doctor would genuinely want to help people. Years of medical school, hefty tuition fees, and perhaps a great deal of intellect would all be involved. And yet, despite this, you keep hearing stories of doctors doing things so stupid or terrible that they end up losing their licenses. That's what it's like, then.
10. Finger amputation on the porch
Ultimately, most of us want to live our lives with all the pieces we had when we started. But alas, fate is unkind, and every now and then we have to say goodbye to random pieces. Perhaps you're in an accident or need to have something amputated to prevent further damage. For example, if you contract a severe infection and it's not treated properly, gangrene sets in. This could lead to amputation, and that's exactly what happened to one Missouri man who chose the wrong doctor.
The man's leg started to ache. gangrene, So, former doctor John Ure decided to amputate it. This is where the details become important. Ure's office was also a machine shed. It had no running water or even an examination table. And when Ure performed the amputation, it was on the porch.
Yur said everything was sterile and did exactly what any doctor would do. Medical records suggest this may not be true, since he wasn't even given antibiotics. But he prescribed painkillers two other patients inappropriately, which resulted in the revocation of his license.
9. Prescribing marijuana to a 4-year-old child with a misdiagnosis
Creative children act childishly—it's right there in the name. And, of course, some adults aren't entirely free of childishness either, based on the endless stream of viral videos we've all seen of people behaving badly, but at least if it's a real child, it's easier to understand and cope with. Children need to learn right from wrong and be shown how to cope with their feelings. And sometimes, if a parent is struggling with this, a consultation with a doctor may be necessary to help. You just hope the doctor knows what they're talking about.
William S. Eidelman, a Los Angeles "natural medicine doctor," consulted with the parents of a four-year-old child who was experiencing anger issues. This in itself is hardly noteworthy, but Eidelman's prescription was there. He gave the child cookie. These are marijuana cookies.
The parents actually followed the doctor's recommendations, but things went wrong when the child asked the school nurse for more marijuana cookies in the middle of the day. The state medical board found that the doctor had misdiagnosed the boy with ADHD and bipolar disorder. In fact, it wasn't the marijuana that led to his license being revoked, but the hasty diagnoses, which they called "« "gross negligence.". ”
8. Filming dance videos during a failed operation
Windell Davis-Boutte achieved viral fame as a dancing doctor: YouTube videos show her performing surgical procedures while dancing to popular music. She also had to pay nearly $200,000 patients who had never had surgery before after she became embroiled in a scandal that resulted in her license being revoked for more than two years.
Although the dance videos were controversial, particularly because they sometimes featured seemingly unconscious patients, it was the numerous malpractice allegations that led to her license being revoked. Patients claimed they had numerous complications after botched procedures, and one even claimed brain damage . The fact that Boutte was a dermatologist makes this even more remarkable. She told patients she was a board-certified plastic surgeon and performed plastic surgery procedures even though she was unqualified.
7. Drugs for pregnant women to induce labor and make more money
The band Loverboy has a song called "Working for the Weekend." It's about working all week to get to the weekend. Pretty self-explanatory. It's the complete opposite of the life of obstetrician Paul Shuen. Shuen developed a remarkable racket that allowed him to reap huge financial rewards, and all he had to do was force women to give birth on the weekends, whether their time had come or not.
In Canada, where Shuen worked, doctors' salaries are covered by the government. The pay structure was such that a weekday birth paid around $498. However, hospitals are often short-staffed on weekends, so weekend births were common. cost $748 . Doctors also have a limit on the number of births they can perform per month. So, Shuen came up with a plan.
He introduced to their patients a drug called misoprostol without their knowledge and consent. It's used to induce labor, and he did it to ensure weekend births were possible. One day in 2016, five different women went into labor rapidly. He was caught when nurses began finding evidence of the drug inside the patients. But the process was slow, and Shuen practiced it for many years before his license was finally revoked.
6. Being drunk and then committing a major fraud
There's an old saying about taking a sip of liquid courage before doing something bold. This simply refers to a quick sip of alcohol to calm your nerves and boost your confidence. It actually works for some people, but you probably don't want your doctor to be one of those people.
Marco Antonio Chavez was a psychiatrist in San Diego when he lost his license practice while intoxicated . The man wasn't a teetotaler either; he was accused of drinking two 8-ounce glasses. or one pint Vodka mixed with cloves. That's just over 10 standard shots. He claimed the drink, which he started drinking at six in the morning, was intended to make him quit drinking because it tasted so bad.
All this happened back in 2018. In 2020, Chavez made headlines again for Tricare fraud , a company that provides medical benefits to military personnel. He was ordered to repay more than $783,000.
5. Posting racist messages on work-related social media
When you go to the doctor, you rarely imagine what kind of person they are in everyday life. You really don't need a window into that, because they're not your friend, they're your doctor. But thanks to social media, so many people are completely incapable of keeping their personal feelings to themselves, even if those feelings are downright awful. Even racists, as in the case of one Ohio doctor.
Lara Kollab had only been working at the Cleveland Clinic for three months when the clinic felt it necessary to fire her after someone pointed out Kollab's tweets. In since-deleted tweets, Kollab spoke of a deliberate appointment Jewish patients wrong medications . Then she lost my second residence permit in California for providing false or misleading information during an interview.
A year later she the license was revoked , permanently banning her from practicing osteopathic medicine in Ohio.
4. They claim to cure Ebola and other life-threatening diseases with sound
Ebola is one of the most terrifying diseases in existence. It kills up to 901 TP3T of infected patients, and it's not a pleasant experience. The disease causes your cells to break down, and you essentially bleed from every orifice. You don't want to get it. And if you do, don't let William Edwin Gray III treat you, because his treatment is useless. In fact, they revoked his license.
Gray claimed to be a homeopath but graduated in 1970 Stanford School of Medicine. He sold drugs for Ebola and other diseases on his personal website as audio files in MP3 format . They cost $5.
The treatment doesn't even rise to the level of homeopathy, so it's a strange, two-layered scam. He claimed on his website some nonsense about how a homeopathic solution creates clusters of molecules that emit energy, which can then be amplified and recorded as a sound wave, and that's exactly what he was selling.
Gray claimed that his treatment treats malaria In Sierra Leone, despite his claims that he could also cure swine flu, headaches, and more, the state medical board revoked his license.
3. Brand sex slaves as a cult
When delving into the entire NVIXM cult, there's a lot to unpack, but very little that's good. But among all the crazy stories, there's one that some people have overlooked, involving a doctor who was involved with the group.
In 2021, Danielle Roberts was disbarred for engaging in 12 forms of professional misconduct. The most notable of these was the use of an instrument designed for cauterization of wounds. put initials cult leader on 17 different women who were used as sex slaves. The brands were meant to signify that they were the property of the cult leader, a man currently serving 120 years in prison on a variety of charges. This branding was also done without anesthesia, to intentionally to cause pain . Her lawyer said the decision would be appealed because, as a sex slave brander for the cult, she was not acting as a medical professional, so the rules should not apply to her in that case.
2. Installation of unnecessary pacemakers
Healthcare fraud is a big deal, and we've already seen some evidence of it from one or two shady doctors. When fraud starts involving implanting things into people, it really goes off the rails, and that's exactly what happened in Kentucky with Anis Chalhoub.
Not only did Chalhoub lose his license, he was also ordered to pay $250,000 and was sentenced to more than three years in prison . His crime was giving people unnecessary pacemakers. The data showed that of the 234 procedures he performed on patients between 2007 and 2011, dozens of them were made when patients did not meet the criteria. In some cases, he told patients they would die unless they received a pacemaker, even when their condition was not terminal.
As you might guess, every time he performed an operation, he was paid for it, which was his main motive for the fraud.
1. Declaring a child dead when there was none
This story doesn't have a happy ending, but it could have been much worse, and one particularly negligent doctor is to blame. Back in 2013, a baby was born in a hospital in eastern China, and the doctor delivering the baby pronounced it dead. It's a harrowing experience for any parent, but imagine how they must have felt two days later when the funeral home where the baby was sent for cremation announced that the child was, in fact, still alive.
Workers notified the hospital, and the boy was returned for treatment, but the prognosis was not encouraging. The child apparently had a deformity of the respiratory system, and the hospital claimed to be treating him from« humanitarian considerations ».
The doctor who pronounced him dead , lost his license, and the story ended with the explanation that the child was in critical condition and there were no further updates.