William Husel, the Ohio critical care physician accused of killing 14 hospitalized patients with massive overdoses of fentanyl, has been acquitted on all charges.
Apparently the jury bought the defense argument that he was just providing “comfort care”, and that “there is no such thing as a medical murder case”.
So, does Husel get his suspended medical license restored now, and will the hospital have to re-hire him or pay damages? Or will he move on, to a hospital near you?
Ohio’s most famous physician killer, Michael Swango, might now be thinking that he’s entitled to release from prison, since there’s no such thing as a medical murder case.
I’m beginning to doubt there is such a thing as a sentient jury.
What evidence was presented to back the prosecutions opinion that “several of the patients in question were not sick enough to die”? Maybe the jury found that evidence unconvincing. What arguments did the defense make, other than this one quote from the opening statement? Maybe the jury found the arguments sufficient to refute the charge of murder chosen by the prosecution?
See earlier post about several of the cases where recovery was deemed possible, including this one.
Even if families of other patients had consented to “do not resuscitate” orders, I know of none that agreed to the administration of lethal doses of narcotics, and more importantly, I have not seen evidence that any of the patients consented.
Maybe there should be a Dope poll with two choices: 1) Juries are infallible, and 2) Juries make mistakes.
Yeah, this. I support the right to assisted suicide (even when it was my own father looking into it), but I goddamned well want that to the person’s choice. It should never be the choice of some doctor. If this guy did it without their consent, he should have been found guilty.
Sure, juries can make mistakes. But they sometimes do justice in unexpected ways. I know nothing about this case except what I’ve seen in 11 posts here, but if 12 members of the community didn’t think this was murder, then perhaps there’s more to the story.
Or a mistake. But there are 100s or 1,000s of jury trials in the US every day. Surely some have reached results you don’t disagree with.
Do you feel that way about Casey Anthony and Aaron Hernandez (other defendants for which Husel’s lead attorney won unexpected murder acquittals)?
There are still lawsuits pending against both the doctor and the hospital system* (which has already paid out over $16 million in settlements). If everything was hunky dory with those patients’ care, it makes you wonder why the hospital system didn’t stand its ground.
*the doctor is also suing the hospital system, for alleged defamation. It’ll be interesting to see where that goes.
Yeah, this case has been a complete mess from the beginning. I don’t believe that confident declarations like this one from 2 years ago that some patients could have survived made it into the trial. I also don’t know how much the prosecution even tried to argue that. I can tell you that the waters are extremely muddy around the basic facts.
I suspect that the jury desperately wanted some doctor to come onto the stand and make such a declaration, and they didn’t get it, so they were left to figure out on their own whether “He may or may not have taken a few weeks off of some people’s lives who were in pretty dire situations anyway, we’re just not sure” was worthy of 14 counts of murder.
I don’t envy them.
eta: I don’t think there’s any risk of him ever working as a doctor again. This verdict isn’t anyone saying that what he did was fine. They went for murder and didn’t get there.
I think people here are misunderstanding the defense. They aren’t arguing that euthanasia was justified in these cases, they were arguing that at these sorts of end of life situations, aggressive use to opioids in fighting pain is justified, even though there might be risks. And that making what turns out to be a wrong medical decision isn’t murder. Their argument was that these were 14 patients out of thousands he treated with aggressive pain management, and that he is being charged with murder for the cases where the risk part of the risk/benefit analysis manifested.
Husel estimates that he saw about 25,000 patients during the years he worked at Mt. Carmel West — and insists that nothing about the 14 patients was different than anyone else. “I cared for my patients,” he says. “I felt that the doses were appropriate for the patients. We were providing comfort care.”
“At Mount Carmel, they didn’t have any policy or protocol for dosage,” he continues. “It’s up to the physician, at his discretion, to manage the symptom at end of life.”
Unless there was some other evidence of premeditation, that argument seems reasonable to me. This may be more a case of malpractice than murder.
The defense argued that fentanyl and other drugs were given for “comfort care”.
Every one of the 14 patients whose cases were presented at trial died within 30 minutes of receiving the drugs, five of them within five minutes or less. How can that be reconciled with “comfort care”?
One might expect a physician to notice after the first couple of deaths that the dosages might just be a wee bit high and adjust them accordingly.
Comments on the Fox News website have been running near unanimously in support of the verdict. Among the villains of the affair according to commenters are 1) prosecutors, 2) the medical profession, 3) Democrats and 4) President Biden. The dominant perception is that the verdict is a triumph for compassionate end-of-life care. These people seem blithely unconcerned about the issue of consent.
Everyone should have a living will detailing what measures should and shouldn’t be taken in the event of terminal illness/injury.* I’ve never heard of a living will that specifies that the I.C.U. doctor can do what he/she likes, regardless of what the patient or patient’s next-of-kin want.
*I’ve done this. My wishes are clear for no heroic efforts to be made to prolong a hopeless situation.