Sexual abuse and mental illness

Sheilah Hernandez, a nurse aide at the Beth Sholom Home in Richmond, was charged with touching the vaginal area of a patient who recently had a stroke and was aphasic – the patient couldn’t speak as a result of brain damage.

Hernandez has anxiety and depression but doesn’t take her meds.

That was obvious at a meeting of the board when Hernandez “made suicidal comments, pounded a table, threw objects, screamed, cried, crawled under a table, and attempted to cut her wrist,” the notice from the board said. Hernandez was taken to a hospital after the incident. She has been hospitalized at least three times for suicidal “thoughts or actions.”

The consent order only says that Hernandez’s license was suspended, but a full meeting of the board is scheduled for September, the notice said. The notice, which was issued the same day as the consent order and lists the findings of fact, also noted that if found guilty, Hernandez will be banned from working in any long term nursing facility that receives Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement.

I searched the Richmond court case database for anything on her, but found nothing… I’m going to keep track of this one, so be on the look out for updates in a few months.

Drinking on and off the job

Robert C. Keeley practices medicine in Roanoke. In September 2005 while on call for his practice at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Keeley was in a car accident, subsequently charged and convicted of DUI. He also told the board that he provided medical directives to nurses on other occasions he drank alcohol and that he attended a substance abuse program in late 2005.

Keeley was REPRIMANDED by the board in April, almost two years later, and required to enter a program with the Health Practitioners’ Intervention Program (HPIP)

Keeley is not alone:

Maybe she was having a bad day? Maybe she was thirsty?

Either way, Trisha Howell, a nurse at Town and Country Assisted Living in Lebanon, VA, was found with a 40 ounce beer between her legs in a residents room. At the time, Howell was responsible for 18 residents, 15 of which were mental health residents. She was fired and charged with neglect.

Howell was also charged with, in separate incidents, driving while intoxicated and child endangerment in 2006, forgery (1991) and concealment (2000). It looks like the most recent offenses in 2006 led to a year of supervised probation.

Howell’s license was suspended in May by the Virginia Board of Nursing.

And last, but not least, Neva Tutwiler had her license suspended until the board meets again in September to discuss allegations of coming to work drunk in Winchester.

Let’s turn to a brief from the The Huffington Post last year that points to a study about this topic:

“Workplace alcohol use and impairment directly affects an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. workforce, or 19.2 million workers, according to a recent study conducted at the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and reported in the current issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol.

Information about workplace alcohol use and impairment during the previous 12 months was obtained by telephone interviews from 2,805 employed adults residing in the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia. The sample of participants was designed to reflect the demographic composition of the adult civilian U.S. workforce from ages 18-65.”

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Sometimes it just takes a bad day for some probation.

Tonya Cook, a physical therapist assistant, forged the signature of a patient on a timecard, indicating she had seen the patient that day when she had not. She lost her job, got six months probation and had to take a class in ethics.

I wanted to make this entry because it illustrates the vast spectrum of wrong doings in professional medicine. You don’t need to hurt a patient to be sanctioned by the state board.

What is also interesting is that Cook’s locality is listed as Greenville, N.C. A Google search left me with no results for her in that area.

Right knee? Or was it left: Wrong-site surgery

Okay, I’ve heard of doctors performing surgeries on the wrong limb. I’ve had friends who made sure to mark, with a sharpie, which ACL to repair when they went under.

But gosh, I’ve never heard of a doctor doing it twice. Kenneth Gray, a doctor from Radford, was reprimanded and fined $5,000 for performing surgery on the wrong knee of one patient and then again on the wrong hip of another patient. Talk about dyslexic.

The mistakes happened one year apart, in December of 2002 and then again in December of 2003.

After initial surgery on an incorrect knee, Gray said he made changes in his surgical procedure to stop wrong-site surgery. Then the 86-year-old woman came along and had to under go the same surgery on both hips – only one of them was fractured.

Here are some tips patients can use to prevent wrong-site surgery from The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCHAO), a not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits 15,000 health care programs throughout the U.S.

1. You and your surgeon should agree on exactly what will be done during the operation.
2. Ask to have the surgical site marked with a permanent marker and to be involved in marking the site. This means that the site cannot be easily overlooked or confused (for example, surgery on the right knee instead of the left knee).
3. Ask questions. You should speak up if you have concerns. It’s okay to ask questions and expect answers that you understand.
4. Think of yourself as an active participant in the safety and quality of your health care. Studies show that patients who are actively involved in making decisions about their care are more likely to have good outcomes.

And here is an article in The Washington Post from October 2006 on wrong-site surgery. The article notes that, in fact, surgery in the wrong area or even on the wrong person is much more common than we might think. And how about going in for circumcision but having your testicles removed? Yowsers.

 

The below chart is from JCAHO and shows an increase in wrong-site surgery over the past decade:

Nurse aide charged with welfare fraud

Alicha Harper, C.N.A., had her license suspended after being convicted of two felonies. Harper was a nurse aide in Richmond.

Harper was charged with two counts of welfare fraud for more than $200. The court suspended a 6 year jail sentence if Harper maintained good behavior and paid $1,563 in restitution to Henrico Social Services and $1,445 in other costs.

The order for suspension of Harper’s license was filed in June. Harper was convicted in August 2005. Why did it take so long for the Department of Health to suspend her license?

The process, according to officials in the department, is a long one. Typically, a complaint must be filed, which is followed by an investigation and then a hearing performed by two members of the board with the professional in question. If a suspension or revocation is recommended, a hearing is then conducted by the entire board for that particular profession.

In the meantime, the professional continues to practice medicine.

Pharmacist diverts drugs

Ronald Malsam, a pharmacist in Fairfax City, had his license suspended and lost his job, according to an order from the Department of Health Professionals. The suspension was ordered in February.

The order does not state the reason why the license was suspended, but a notice dated the same day alleged that Malsam, over the course of a year-and-a-half, diverted 621 tablets of hydrocodone, alprazolam, acetaminophen and Lipitor, among other drugs, for his personal use.

To report a violation

To file a complaint or to report possible violations by a Virginia health care practitioner, telephone toll-free: 1-800-533-1560 or (804) 662-9956, (804) 662-9579, (804) 662-9934 or (804) 662-9902, Monday-Friday, 8:15 am – 5:00pm.

No gloves?

Robert Barnes, a dentist in VA Beach, was fined $1,000 for not wearing gloves while seeing patients, causing a health hazard.

It is not clear if Barnes washed his hands frequently. This was the dentist’s first infraction, according to the Department of Health.

James Stewart sleeps with patients and uses cocaine

James Stewart, from Staunton, has had his license revoked by the Virginia Board of Psychologists.

From 1994 to 2004, Stewart slept in the same bed as a patient and borrowed her car, documents said.

After ten years of weekly sessions to another patient, Stewart moved into that patient’s house, rent-free, from the summer of 2002 to August 2003. He also used the patient’s credit card and borrowed money.

Stewart abused cocaine and alcohol by his own admission to both staff at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville and to a patient.

Drugged nurse

Lori Elizabeth Anderson was convicted of 50 felony counts of falsely obtaining drugs. Anderson, a nurse, was convicted in Carroll County and has an address on record in Max Meadows.

Anderson got 10 years in jail and had her driver’s license revoked. Her nursing license was suspended in May.