This was already discussed upthread, but it wasn’t pills. Propofol is an IV sedative. A sane person wouldn’t have asked for it, but a sensible doctor never would have administered for someone who had insomnia.
People pay doctors not just for their prescription writing services and their treatment but for their judgment and expertise. Murray wasn’t found guilty of Murder 1, but it’s hard to deny he was an accessory to Jackson’s death. Jackson famously had the self indulgence and poor judgment of a badly spoiled child and there’s no way Murray couldn’t see that, and the only authority Jackson had over him was signing his paycheck and Murray could have found employment almost anywhere (not as lucratively perhaps, but certainly for an amount that would have allowed great comfort).
I don’t think this is accurate.
Reason being that I myself just had a minor medical procedure done under this drug (I specifically asked the doctor if it was the same drug that killed MJ). This doctor is a top specialist in his field, professor in a major teaching hospital, auther of published studies etc., but I can’t imagine he took 5 years of training as an anesthetist. He administered the IV and drug himself, and I am not aware that anyone else was ever in the room (although someone else could theoretically have come in and left before I woke up). [I think I did have the thing they clamp on your finger and possibly a BP checker.]
In sum, it does not seem that this drug is a full scale anesthesia that has all the requirements that you describe.
Except MJ didn’t do it to himself,
A (supposedly) highly trained health professional with (supposedly) good judgement gave it to him.
Doctors are highly paid for their judgement.
This doctor (from what has been published) totally checked his judgement at the door for a big cheque.
JACKSON DIDN’T DO IT TO HIMSELF. Can that be any clearer?
This was not a case where a doctor gave an addict a bucket of pills and then walked away while the addict gobbled them up.
There’s a difference between letting a suicidal person borrow your gun, and pointing your gun at their head and squeezing the trigger. It doesn’t matter if your suicidal buddy asked you to shoot him, it’s still a crime for you to shoot him.
He wasn’t charged with murder; just involuntary manslaughter. The jury couldn’t have let him off any harder.
In Canada (to which I was referring), specialty certification in Anesthesia requires completion of a five year program. Here are two representative links attesting to this fact. Link #1 (McGill Program) Link #2 (Calgary Program).
In terms of monitoring, it need not be super-duper high tech and sophisticated. As I said, one must monitor the anesthetized patient’s heart and lung function the whole time he/she “is under”. An electronic BP cuff is fine for the former, and the “clamp on your finger” is an oxygen monitor which provides a continuous measure of the patient’s oxygen level (i.e. lung function). So, it sounds like you were, in fact, being monitored appropriately.
If your understanding of this verdict is any guide, it’s not difficult to see why you have a problem with similar ones.
Look up the “Hippocratic Oath”, for one.
The doctor was essentially a controlled-substance drug dealer. That’s the concerning part. MJ died, but there are probably hundreds of patients that the doctor took advantage of.
In the US as well you need advanced training to be an anesthesiologist. The issue here is whether this specific type of drug requires an anesthesiologist with the advanced training, or whether an ordinary doctor can administer it.
Jackson hired Murray to be his personal doctor. He had no other patients.
I think Murray got cornered in a bad situation by a bad customer. This is the metaphorical equivalent of someone calling my computer shop and offering to buy 100 computers from me but only if I will pirate windows. Done with discretion I could probably get away with it, but now you have a customer with leverage against me, since he can play stupid and rat me out for piracy if I give in to his request. At the same time that order would be a huge boost to my business and give me resources to make my business better, hire more help, larger facilities.
If Murray said no, he would find himself out of a highly lucrative job, and most likely out of the “private doc to the stars” biz. This kind of request for heavy meds and unadvisable treatments is probably far from unique, just in Murrays case he had the misfortune of it blowing up in his face with “The King of Pop”. Lots of these folks don’t like being told no, and plenty of them have a history of firing household help on a whim. Losing 2mil a year vs. walking a fine medically dangerous line, happens every day in the medical world.
If this had happened to some other uber rich non-celebrity, would have been a 20 second mention on the local news and questionable if the doc ever would have been charged. I agree with the verdict as it stands because he was under immense financial pressure to comply. Lots of people would do lots of things they would not normally do for that kind of money. Thats scary money even for an MD.
I guess poor Dr. Murray would have been forced to go back to being a regular Dr. with the measly salary that entails.
Also, no one has mentioned that Dr. Murray pretty much blew any chance of saving MJ while he was busy trying to hide evidence.
The answer to both your questions is no. As a specially trained ER (and ex-ICU) nurse, I’ve administered and monitored pts on propofol many times. We love it in the ER for it’s rapid onset, short duration and the utterly flaccid pt response. The perfect thing for dropping a dislocated hip or shoulder back into place. We do this with 3 or 4 specially trained staff because it can induce a loss of gag reflex and suppress breathing to the point where we’d have to breath for you. I’ve had this happen occasionally, it doesn’t last long (although long enough to kill you), and if you’re prepared for it, it’s easily managed. We use it in ICU on a continous infusion for intubated pts. The desire not to have a plastic tube in your airway goes all the way down to your lizard brain and it takes major disease, or major drugs to overcome it (there are lots of people that wouldn’t survive without being on a breathing machine, but wouldn’t tolerate one without sedation).
There are plenty of doctors that don’t have the special training to handle this drug. An interventional cardiologist, that is, one that does invasive procedures like stents and angioplasty might, but a cardiologist that did medication management and non-invasive testing might not.
I don’t have any coworkers that condone what Murray did, no gray area, no differences of opinion.
To me it seems like Propofol really should not be available to any doctor to use as they see fit. I would expect something like that to be restricted to hospital usage only. It just seems odd Murray could obviousyl get hold of Propofol with no issues given what they have stated on how it shoud be used during the trial. It does not sound like something that should ever be used in a private patients home.
A slightly different question: would MJ have experienced ANY restful sleep, from these weird combinations of drugs?
In my own experience, sleeping pills will get you to sleep, bt you wake up (usually) tired and groggy.
It sounds like MJ was in really bad shape-he wasn’t sleeping and wound up hooked on some very dangerous drugs.
Almost all drugs are available to any doctor to use as they see fit. (And the ones that aren’t generally just require the physician to get a DEA number, which is easy enough to apply for). Physicians are expected to use good professional judgement when prescribing medications - that IS why we are referred to as professionals, after all. Exercising good judgement is a key part of our job.
And I can see outpatient settings (such as dental clinics) where propofol would be genuinely useful, and administering it would be appropriate. But in those settings I’d expect the staff to have the necessary training to administer it safely, and to use the necessary monitoring equipment on their patients (and have a crash cart readily available just in case). Otherwise they’d be guilty of professional malpractice (as Dr. Murray certainly is).
I only paid partial attention to the trial proceedings - but I recall one defense expert claim that jackson ‘self administered’ the fatal dosage, and this was indicated in the amount/location/timing of it - obviously the jury didn’t buy this, whats the consensus here on that theory?
I very much doubt Michael Jackson had experienced any genuinely restful sleep for years. On the other hand, crappy sleep probably felt better to him than no sleep at all, and I doubt he was willing to make the necessary lifestyle changes to get the genuine article (as initially they would have made him feel worse rather than better).