My Doctor the Psychopath: The Things He Did the Hierarchy That Made It Possible

By Darlene Bloome Mishek

"This book is a must read for any couple contemplating parenthood. It not only points out that giving an across the board trust to an obstetrician is not a good idea, but cautions on how to select one. At no time in their lives will it be more important to be proactive.

The giving of drugs is routine, yet no drug is safe, especially for the baby. Drugs and anesthetics are frequently given for the convenience of the doctor. Women are also led to believe that they cannot possibly do this by themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rarely are parents warned of the possible harmful effects on the baby.

Doctors have a need to be in charge. It is difficult for them to give up the power and control that they are accustomed to in the practice of medicine.

However, birth is a natural phenomenon and should not be tampered with. In only two or three percent of the cases is intervention necessary.

Hospitals and anesthesiologists also benefit financially from obstetrical intervention, These are not in the best interest of new parents, or their babies. The consequences are huge for a society that is at risk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 16, 2005
• ISBN: 9781469124025

Darlene Bloome Mishek

Mrs. Mishek was born on a farm in Illinois in 1925. A Registered Nurse, she observed many acts of medical malpractice. Finally it happened to her. The author lives in Parker Colorado with her husband of 41 years. They have two grown children

Book preview

PROLOGUE

It is February 29, 2004. Today I have begun to write my book. It has been a long time coming. And a long time thought out. This book is inevitable. It is begging to be written. There will be days when writing will be painful, days when I cannot do it. In reality the story should never have had to be written. What happened should not have happened, especially in a civilized society. The reader may find that what is in here seems to be absurd and unbelievable.

However, every word in this book is true. Every name is exactly the same except for a few people who would be hurt if their names were used. In their cases I will be using similar names.

I am now 78 years old. I have been married for over 40 years to Dr. Donald Mishek. He is a retired dentist. I am a retired registered nurse. In the early years of our marriage, we welcomed into our family two children. Our oldest, a son Tim, is now 39 and our daughter Valerie, will soon be 38. It is the story of our daughter’s birth that prompted me to write this story. However, it is more than just about a birth that this book is written.

This story would be more about my son too, if the doctor who delivered him had not apologized for what he had done. Sadly for us, both of our children were treated in a horrible fashion at the hospital on the day when each was born. Instead of a day of great celebration we were all put at unnecessary risk by those we had trusted so much. There were overdoses of drugs, drugs given in the wrong bodily areas, inappropriate use of medications, forceps and anesthesia.

Few subjects in medical literature have been as frequently considered as parturitional lesions of the newborn.—Innumerable human beings suffer fatal injury at birth. Others survive, but remain seriously disabled throughout their lives. Birth injury to the central nervous system of newborn infants is one of the most frequent and most deleterious of diseases, and perhaps the most neglected in human pathology. It is essential that this fact be generally known. Only then can appropriate measures be taken to enable all mothers to give birth to healthy, normal children. Dr. R.M. Schwartz

The above statement prompted me to start this book.

Those few words from books written by several medical investigators, along with many other books on the subject, is available in every medical library. What isn’t available is anything written on the subject of covering up for the doctors and nurses who perpetrate disabilities with their carelessness, disinterest, lack of education and last, but not least, an ongoing lack of compassion and dedication.

In my particular case, as if that weren’t bad enough, there was an ongoing cover up and denial on the part of the hospital, the staff and the doctors themselves. Additionally there were omissions on the hospital record, called THE CHART in hospitals. These omissions themselves constitute a grave misuse of medical and nursing practice. As nurses and doctors we can’t just write down what is comfortable for us. We are legally, morally and ethically obligated to write pertinent information. If not, then there is no point in having a hospital record. I have known instances where doctors tell nurses that they have to rewrite an entire hospital page to reflect a completely different set of circumstances! If they refused some I have known were fired on the spot and were called insubordinate! On my records at the hospital there were omissions of facts, and many times, no nurse’s signature at all! Except for the anesthetist on the chart pertaining to Valerie’s birth there was not one nurse’s signature. There were life threatening events and neglectful handling of the incidents that followed my admission to the hospital on both occasions. On the chart pertaining to Tim’s birth there were also no nurses signatures for the most part and there were grievous omissions of events that occurred.

Because the public at that time was denied access to records at the hospital, I was not to learn the truth of what transpired until many years had passed. Subpoenaed records, of course, were provided, but there was a dilemma. I did not want to accuse any one of mistreatment until I was sure of what had taken place. Until I was sure, I had no thought of starting a lawsuit against anyone. I had worked as a nurse at that hospital. I had worked along side those doctors. Maybe a mistake was made. I had been injured. The injuries of my children were more subtle. I just didn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together. It took years of pondering over what I knew, and guessing about what I didn’t know, before I finally learned the truth of these unbelievable events.

This is the story of a man who was privileged. He was a Medical Doctor, an obstetrician. He also was mentally ill, and how his illness affected so many of his patients is what this book is about. A doctor’s position is unique. He has the lives of his patients in his hands. There is no margin for error. There is no margin for mental illness, or for inflated egos. Many people do not realize that doctors are as subject to mental illness as is the general population. I believe that we are all a little mentally ill. The obvious is usually detectable; the subtle could be as innocent as having too big an ego. In either case if one’s judgment is impaired, by the obvious or subtle, lives are affected or, worse, lost.

There is also the matter of evil. Some people are simply evil and when that evil is encouraged or, if not encouraged, at least tolerated and accepted, the evil doer finds himself protected and then the sky is the limit. The perpetrator finds himself in a position of continuing to perpetrate that evil and what ever twisted pleasure he receives from it, he continues to enjoy… . until someone stops him. In the case of this doctor he was sued at least nine times and for the most egregious of medical malpractice. How many more patients he hurt or killed is kept in the most secret files by other doctors, the hospital and the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners. He had a battery of attorneys who got him off nearly every time there was a court case filed against him. All too often the victims were discredited by the opposing attorney even though they proved their cases. Most of the time juries, not wishing to harm those ‘nice doctors’, would also discredit them. Frequently jurors do not understand the effects of drugs on patients. Perhaps they think that prescribed drugs cannot possibly be harmful. What they may not understand is that there are drug reactions, drug interactions and that dosages given in excessive amounts can do permanent damage or cause death.

Though this doctor, who is now deceased, having died in a locked ward of a mental institution, after being committed there by his family or the police, can no longer defend himself against any charges of malfeasance, nevertheless to elevate him even in death to the level of hero is an abomination.

In my particular instance it was the nurses who hurt me the most. As far as I know none of them were mentally ill or otherwise impaired. They stood for nothing and if they, as they claimed, stood in the way of this doctor hurting anyone else they did it subtly and I’m sure never to his knowledge. They did not stand in his way when he hurt me, and in fact gave the dangerous drugs that he ordered, knowing full well the consequences of their actions. We have conservatively 98,000 people who die in hospitals of unexplained causes in the United States each year. In this book I am addressing the need for better oversight of hospitals, nurses and doctors. It has not been done in any constructive manner.

missing image filemissing image file

CHAPTER 1

The death of Dr. Robert Stanton

I thought, ‘My God, he is dead! At long last he is dead.’ My husband had just brought me the morning paper and showed me the obituary. I was stunned and couldn’t move. My freshly poured cup of coffee became cold. It was 7:30 A.M. November 20, 2001. He was 69 years old. There it was. Dr. Robert Stanton, my one time friend who had hurt me more than any human I had ever known. Here in front of me was the news I had waited for. Every day for many years I would open the paper to the obituary column and look for his name. There would be Smith, Sanders, an occasional Stanton but never the right one. This November day it was! After all I had been through I somehow knew that the only thing that would ever stop him was his own death! Recovering from the initial shock, I began to feel a sense of relief. This man could never again hurt another woman, never again lie his way in a court of law. He would never again be protected by his fellow doctors and have his actions glossed over by his sanctimonious St. Joseph Hospital. The nuns and the nurses who covered up for him would not have to do that anymore. They needed no longer to hide behind the facade of religion or fear.

I began to think of the years that I tried to stop him; the years I went to court, and to the Department of Administration. Numerous times I appealed to the State of Colorado Board of Medical Examiners, the Denver Medical Society and the Colorado Medical Society. Always defeated, never validated, never vindicated. I went often to St. Joseph Hospital begging to be heard. Then there were my lawyers, none of whom were qualified or who cared for that matter. It was staggeringly difficult. It was like crying into the wilderness. No one heard my pleas.

I decided to find out where Dr. Stanton died and the cause of his death. Learning how he died was easier than I thought it would be. In the obituary in the morning newspaper was the notice, that in lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Alzheimer’s Association. No problem, I thought. That morning I called an Alzheimer’s unit where I had once been employed. He had died in a locked ward, unable to escape from the demons he housed in his own soul. I also learned that he did not have Alzheimer’s disease.

Garden Terrace in Aurora, Colorado is a very nice nursing home that was designed to care for people who endanger themselves and others and are prone to escape from their surroundings. In every case, to some degree or another, patients admitted there have lost touch with reality. Not all the patients in an Alzheimer’s unit have the disease. Sometimes others who need to be in a place for their own safety, where escape is virtually impossible, need to be cared for in this type of environment. The care given at Garden Terrace is excellent.

Because of his condition Dr. Stanton had to be in a locked ward. He had become violent and he suffered from dementia—insanity—psychosis. He was also taking inappropriate drugs. Was I surprised? No. I had known for years that he was severely impaired mentally. I tried to convey that to all the people that were in a position to do something about it. Yet he remained in a position of sacred trust. He continued to do things to women that would beggar the imagination. How he abused that trust, except in certain examples, had to be for me, only conjecture. The walls of denial, cover up and glossing over were always dropped in front of me.

At least at 4 A.M. November 19, 2001 the final curtain of his bellicose life was drawn. He died ignominiously in a locked ward of a mental institution.

Did he deserve this? Maybe not. People who are mentally ill may not be responsible for their actions. So twisted are their thought patterns, they may not even know right from wrong. I am not in a position to know this about him. The thing that I did know, however, was that he should not have been in a position of trust where human lives were at stake, where using judgment is of such importance. He had no judgment, no conscience, both typical of mental disorders. Early on, when signs and symptoms of his bizarre behavior were first noted, someone should have done something about it. He was clever though and for a long time, I too, did not recognize his problems. He was so good at looking one right in the eye and telling a bare faced lie that even the smartest among us might not have perceived the situation. However, it shouldn’t have taken 35 years for those around him all the time to be able to recognize this for what it was. It seems that when one becomes a physician, all license is given to him to do pretty much as he pleases. (This is true of women doctors, as well) Even the standards of care are overlooked. Sadly, for the thousands of women patients, many of whom became Dr. Stanton’s victims, nothing was done to stop him. Some of his offenses against women were so egregious that had there been one intelligent person out there who was not caught up in the politics of the game, so perverse in the medical profession, he could have been stopped in his tracks. It would have certainly kept many women from living their lives out in quiet desperation. The stories of what happened to the babies, many of whom were injured by his actions, and some of whom died and were denied life by him, perhaps would fill another book.

One of the reasons that Dr. Stanton had so many patients is because when he first came back to Colorado from his residency at Kapiolani Hospital in Hawaii he secured the job of physician for the welfare recipients of Jefferson County. Because he was an obstetrician/gynecologist, it followed that he would be taking care of women. He held that job for approximately 35 years.

CHAPTER 2

His discharge from the staff at St. Joseph Hospital

In November of 1999, St. Joseph Hospital withdrew Dr. Stanton’s privileges. He could no longer practice there. They deny this, of course. They are still covering up for him after his death. Several years ago a nurse in labor and delivery told me that they had devised a scheme where when one of his patients came into the hospital in labor, they would have the resident or another doctor deliver that patient, then call him to tell him to come to the hospital. By the time he arrived, of course, the patient had been safely delivered. I don’t know if he ever caught onto their scheme!

CHAPTER 3

Reminiscence

The assault and battery

Today is March 5, 2004. As it is every year on this date, this is a difficult day for me. It was on this date 38 years ago, when nearly full term with my second pregnancy, I had been to my final prenatal visit with Dr. Stanton. It was a beautiful day in Colorado. The sun was shining brightly and there were signs of spring approaching. I was healthy and sublimely happy and looking forward to the birth of my second child. I had had a bad experience with my first delivery and changed doctors as a result.

After my exam Dr. Stanton walked out onto the lawn with me. His office was in a converted house and was across the street from what was then Presbyterian Hospital. Why I remember that it was 11:45 in the morning is beyond me. Perhaps it was because it was to be a defining moment in my life and one I would never forget. Dr. Stanton, who I thought of as dear friend in addition to being my doctor, asked me a question. It took me many years before I was to realize what he meant by it. At the time he asked me this question I had only a passing feeling of hesitation before I answered. He asked, How do you want this baby?

I answered quickly, Why Bob, I trust you. Little did I know that he meant ALIVE OR DEAD, INJURED or NOT INJURED! That was all he needed—the person I thought of as my dear friend began to scheme! Years later I was to learn that he had done this before, but probably never to the extent that he did it to me. I trusted him. He now knew it, and he was about to betray that trust in the most heinous manner. It was to take me nearly 10 years to learn the absolute horror of it all.

It was not unusual for doctors and nurses to become friends. However, I was never very comfortable being friends with doctors. We had been taught early on in nursing school that doctors were on a plane above us. The hints about that social status were subtle, but it was there like a small veil of distinction. We were quite simply ‘not as good as they were.’ It was unusual then for me to consider even having a doctor as a friend, and more unusual for me to call him by his first name! Yet, somehow, during his internship at St. Joseph Hospital we did become friends.

There were many times during that nearly ten years that followed when I had a quizzical need to know what happened five days after that encounter on the lawn of his office. What had happened on March 10, 1966? Once I asked Dr. Stanton why I had been unconscious all that time—actually from five to ten A.M., an incredible five hours! I had been an obstetric nurse. I couldn’t understand what could have happened. Unbelievably, I still trusted him as he told me that he had no idea that I would have such a reaction to Demerol. He failed to tell me about giving me pitocin. I had told him that I never wanted to have pitocin. It is a powerful drug that stimulates the contractions of the uterus and has frightening side effects. It had always been given by the intravenous route and I was not given an I.V. so I ‘knew’ that he did not give it to me. I expressly told him that I did not want that drug. (When a drug is given to a patient who refuses it, this can be construed to be a case of assault and battery. I had learned that early on as a student nurse.) I knew how dangerous it was. I also told him that I wanted natural childbirth. I did not know he planned to give me Demerol, a