Nurse Whistle-Blower Charged for Reporting Doctor

[kpete]

Source: ABC News


Nurse Whistle-Blower Charged for Reporting Doctor
Texas Nurse Fired After Sheriff Seizes Computer and Finds Letter of Complaint
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Feb. 9, 2010

When veteran nurse Anne Mitchell wrote a confidential letter last year to the Texas Medical Board, complaining about a doctor she thought practiced shoddy medicine, she assumed it would be anonymous.

Instead, Dr. Rolando Arafiles Jr. fired her after reporting her to the local sheriff -- a former patient and admirer of the doctor -- for maliciously ruining his reputation.

Police in Kermit, Texas, searched Mitchell's computer and found the letter, then charged her with "misuse of official information" in her role at Winkler Memorial Hospital, a third-degree felony in Texas under an abuse-of-power statute.

Today, 52 and out of work, Mitchell could face 10 years in prison for doing what she believed was her obligation under the law -- to report unsafe medical practices.

"She's devastated," Mitchell's lawyer Brian Carney told "Good Morning America." "It has hurt her financially. Personally, it's hard on her family to say that she has done something wrong when, in fact, she has done nothing but do her duty."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/nurse-whistleblower-fingered-doctor-bad-medicine-face-10/story?id=9781119

[AngryAmish]

1. Insanity

[Donnachaidh]

2. and doctors want tort reform so the shoddy doctors can continue to practice

And the only people affected are the patients they cripple and the people who try to turn them in for practicing bad medicine.

[mn9driver]

3. Texas.

Good ol' boys stick together.

[xxqqqzme]

4. Are there so few doctors per person in

Texas that one can wield the power to arrest a whistle blower? I have never felt safe when traveling through Texas. Gonna pay more attention to that nagging little voice in the future.

[Jefferson23]

5. I hope a high profile lawyer steps up to defend her, I wonder if the ACLU could help her.

"The case has been so contentious, setting off friends against each other in this oil and cow town of 5,200 near the New Mexico border, that the trial was moved miles away to a state court in Andrew, Texas, where jury selection was under way Monday.

But it has also sent shock waves around the country, particularly among the state and national nursing associations, which have raised $40,000 for Mitchell's defense. They say they're afraid that if she is found guilty, there will be no watchdogs for unsound or unsafe medicine."

[femrap]

6. The world is upside down now. nt

[HuckleB]

7. More on this story from a doctor's point of view.

He supports the nurses!

The legal establishment of Winkler County, Texas conspires to punish whistle blowing nurses

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3785

[HuckleB]

8. Donate to the nurses legal defense fund from this page...

http://www.texasnurses.org/