After the superstar's death, the private doctor was convicted of manslaughter: Why did celebrity doctors "overturn the car repeatedly"?

Being a man is difficult, being a woman is even more difficult, being an old woman is even more difficult.

This is a classic line left by Zhao Benshan and Song Dandan in the Spring Festival Gala sketch.

Similar ridicule on doctors does not seem absurd.

Being a doctor is difficult, being a famous doctor is difficult, and being a famous doctor next to a celebrity is not as fame and fortune as imagined.

Source: YouTube video screenshot

On November 25, Maradona died at his home in recuperation due to cardiac arrest at the age of 60. Just five days after his death, the residence and office of Maradona's personal doctor were searched by the police.

The police stated that they would conduct related investigations against the doctor on the charge of "manslaughter" to find out whether there was medical negligence and negligence in the course of recovery after Maradona's operation, which led to Marado. Na's death.

In this regard, the doctor cried at the press conference: he has done his best in the treatment process, but Maradona is not an obedient patient.

"The operation was really successful. I advised him to go to the rehabilitation center after leaving the hospital, but he doesn't want to do that! If he doesn't want to, you can't do anything."

Maradona and his personal doctor (Source: YouTube video screenshot)

Currently, the results of the survey have not been announced. But the outside world is still talking about it, because the grievances between celebrities and doctors really have too many lessons.

Distorted medical treatment: from earning one million a year to going to jail

The most famous precedent is the sudden death of a generation of superstar Michael Jackson.

On June 25, 2009, a press announcement stated that pop star Michael Jackson died at the UCLA Medical Center due to a heart attack.

But the coroner said his sudden death was not simple.

The subsequent autopsy report stated that Jackson was in good health, his heart was well structured, and he did not have atherosclerosis. There was no substantial disease in any other organs except for the inflammation in the lungs. It seemed doubtful that he had a heart attack.

The truth comes from toxicological analysis-the singer has an alarming overdose of various anesthetics and tranquilizers in his body.

Soon after, the court announced that Jackson’s death was due to the anesthetic propofol and other sedatives such as lorazepam and midazolam injected by his private doctor. The police defined the case as a homicide and immediately filed a lawsuit against his personal doctor, cardiologist Murray.

Michael Jackson's personal doctor Murray (Source: YouTube video screenshot)

According to Morrie's confession and the police's recovery on the day of the incident, it is certain that Michael Jackson's personal doctor did have long-term illegal injections of anesthetics and tranquilizers for him:

Due to many factors such as stress, Jackson's sleep quality is extremely low. He has taken sedative and analgesic drugs for a long time to seek sleep effect, which has resulted in severe drug dependence and tolerance.

On the night of his death, he had insomnia again and sought medicine from a private doctor. Morrie gave Valium tablets, and then injected lorazepam half an hour later, but there was no effect.

According to Morrie's confession, after that, he injected midazolam into the singer at 3, 5, and 7:30 in the morning, but it was still a sleepless night for Jackson.

"He kept begging me to give him propofol injections," Morrie said. In the end, he added 25 mg of propofol to Jackson's drip (the amount is in doubt).

Propofol is also nicknamed "little milk" in the industry (Source: Figure Chong Creative)

This action is extremely dangerous. There are no safety measures and strict monitoring during the injection of propofol: there is no monitoring equipment in his home to monitor the patient's vital signs. Obviously, the cardiologist was not prepared to provide the conditions and measures for oxygen inhalation and emergency resuscitation. He even went to the toilet after giving the medicine.

In less than ten minutes, a generation of music legends stopped breathing and passed away. In 2011, the highly-paid doctor Morrie, who was said to have an annual salary of one million, settled the accusation of "manslaughter" and went to jail.

Celebrities and private doctors have always been uncalculated bad debts. Another music legend "Elvis" died suddenly from a heart attack. The police found 14 different prescription drugs including amphetamine, anesthetics, barbiturates, tranquilizers and sleeping pills in the medical record system of his personal doctor. The prescribed doses have reached the level of abuse.

At the same time, the private doctor prescribed a large number of drugs that exceeded the standard for several other celebrities in charge of him. Because there is no evidence of direct death by Elvis, the doctor was not involved in criminal responsibility. However, the Medical Council suspended his medical license for misuse of prescription drugs.

Celebrities hire private doctors with the intention of getting better treatment and health management. However, in practice, it often evolves into the above-mentioned compliance and palliative treatment of well-known patients, which becomes a lose-lose outcome.

Not a stubborn illness, VIP syndrome

For the special phenomenon in the diagnosis and treatment of celebrities, in fact, the academic circles have already put forward the corresponding term, which is called VIP syndrome or VIP syndrome.

In 1964, psychiatrist Walter Weintraub described this abnormal doctor-patient treatment for the first time.

Source: Reference 1

He pointed out that VIP syndrome is not a real disease, but refers to when doctors face VIP figures such as celebrities, rich people, leaders, etc., they may not strictly abide by professional principles or even deviate from standard diagnosis and treatment methods due to various concerns and pressures. , Leading to undesirable consequences.

More than 50 years later, this kind of chronic disease that is not a disease still plagues the doctors.

On October 6, a commentary article published on Medscape pointed out that the treatment of Trump’s new crown is likely to be a bad decision made by the doctors’ group under VIP syndrome.

Facing ordinary patients, doctors know that standard diagnosis and treatment are the best and effective, but when facing VIPs, they may forget these basic principles. For example, because Trump is the president, he uses an antibody cocktail therapy that is not within the scope of standard treatment and can only be used with sympathetic administration.

Trump's physician team (Source: YouTube video screenshot)

Although we all know that Trump will heal soon, not every US president is so lucky under this "special care". In fact, Washington, the first US president, may have been a victim.

After George Washington contracted some kind of bacterial epiglottitis, he underwent the most advanced treatment at the time, bloodletting, four times within 12 hours. According to historical records, he was bled a total of 2.5 liters. In the end, the president passed away on December 14.

VIP syndrome is not only limited to the diagnosis and treatment of celebrity groups, but also makes hospital staff feel uneasy during the VIP hospitalization.

In 2014, the "Boston Globe" reported that a Middle Eastern prince had VIP syndrome at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the United States.

The prince was infected with drug-resistant bacteria. According to the procedures of this top American hospital, he needs to wear protective clothing. But the dignitaries believed that wearing protective clothing was a kind of "dirty" performance, so doctors had to succumb to this unreasonable request. At the same time, the prince’s private team also took over all routine medications in the hospital and even cleaned the IV catheters by themselves.

This hospital is also an affiliated hospital of Harvard (Source: Wikipedia)

Various conflicts between the celebrity's privacy requirements and clinical treatment have made the treatment efficiency very low. The attending doctor said that the prince’s recovery time was much slower than they expected, but fortunately, the "big Buddha" was sent away without any risk in the end.

An anonymous doctor said in an interview: "If something goes wrong, it is definitely not the royal attendant who washes the catheters who will be accountable, but we who can't speak."

In 2017, a survey on the VIP hospitalization environment showed that most of the doctors in the study had been pressured by VIP patients or related personnel to request medically unnecessary examinations or treatments. Even 36% of doctors have been pressured by their own hospitals and forced to comply with the needs of celebrities.

In recent years, a narrative review stated that due to the lack of correct guidelines for VIP syndrome, this phenomenon is no longer a cheerful play on TV and news or anecdotal rumors, and even appears in ordinary people’s daily lives. .

Warning: VIP may be by your side

In this document, the author described a "VIP syndrome" that happened to him.

A colleague from the dermatology department asked the author of the neurology department to see her father. But at the beginning, this colleague listed a long list of "self-considered differences" to the author, and made a diagnosis by himself, and even made two appointments for brain CT, magnetic resonance imaging, coronary CT and otolaryngology.

Fortunately, the author did not let him go. He insisted on listening to the patient's own medical statement, completing an independent diagnosis, and clearly pointed out that the colleague had excessive finger-pointing—if the colleague's wishes, her father would even have to use a pacemaker.

Source: Reference 2

After this incident, the author went to search for other similar cases. He found that for most medical groups, the "special ward" in the hospital is often empty: but patients with special characteristics such as acquaintances, colleagues, friends and family members will also blur the professional boundaries of doctors.

Accidents caused by the deformation of diagnosis and treatment have occurred frequently, and these treatments may have been out of good intentions and favors.

He warned against this: VIP syndrome is not a far-flung term, and it may even have appeared in your working life-but there has been no accident.

At the end of the article, the author gave his own suggestions:

With firm stance and effective communication, no matter how big the opponent is, you can't mess up your position first. If the doctors start to compromise, then this treatment has become a gamble.