Healthcare is a huge profession, with millions of medical professionals serving hundreds of millions of people in every state, 24/7. It's a recipe for weird stories. We don't know what the new year will bring, but 2010 saw some jawdroppers.
In an effort to tap into a rich vein, we have cobbled together our second annual list of some of the weirdest stories in the healthcare realm over the past 12 months.
Some stories are funny. Some most definitely are not. Some, in fact, are tragic. And this list is by no means comprehensive. We feel it safe to say that no list of oddities in healthcare could be comprehensive. We're also not going to rank them, because we can't figure out criteria, other than weird, and that is highly subjective. So here they are, in no particular order.
1. Bodacious Babes Hired to Woo Bone Marrow Donors
UMass Memorial Health Care CEO John O'Brien issued an apology in late December for the hospital's practice of using professional models as lures to recruit potential bone marrow donors. In a memo to doctors and other members of the Worcester medical institution, O'Brien called the practice "an error in judgment' and said it had been discontinued. "Let me say right from the start that the use of professional models for marketing purposes here was not appropriate for an academic healthcare organization like ours, which holds itself to the highest standards,' O'Brien wrote. UMass Memorial has used the models, women dressed in short skirts and heels, to work booths at malls and public events in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island to solicit people to be tested for a potential life-saving bone marrow match. Investigators from Massachusetts and New Hampshire are looking into the practice, as well as whether UMass Memorial charged insurers high rates for testing the DNA samples and misled donors about the cost of DNA testing.
2. Hospital CEO Fired After Prostitution Sting
In another oddity from the Gopher State, David Cress, 60, was fired as president/CEO of North Memorial Health Care in Minneapolis after he was arrested on misdemeanor charges in September during a prostitution sting at a downtown hotel. Cress, a board member of the Minnesota Hospital Association, had been with the hospital since 1982 and became CEO in 2005. North Memorial Board Chairman Larry Taylow called the arrest "a troubling, personal situation."
3. DC Hospital Fires Nurses for Missing Work in Blizzard
Washington (DC) Hospital Center began termination procedures on 15 nurses for missing work because of a blizzard that had shut down the nation's capital. In a memo to hospital staff, Washington Hospital Center CEO Harrison J. Rider III said the hospital is dismissing 21 employees—15 nurses and six "essential" personnel members. Rider expressed displeasure in the employees who are being fired. "While I am very pleased that we found merit in some of the cases we reviewed, we have not found any redeeming circumstances in the behavior of the others, so we are proceeding with the dismissal of 21 total associates," Rider stated. Nurses United of the National Capital Region filed a grievance against the hospital.
4. Former Hospital CFO Pleads Guilty in Skid Row Kickback Scheme
The former CFO of Tustin Hospital and Medical Center in Los Angeles pleaded guilty in February to paying illegal kickbacks for patients recruited from the city's "Skid Row" area, the U.S. Attorneys Office in Los Angeles has announced. In a plea agreement filed in federal court, Vincent Rubio 49, of Los Angeles, admitted paying kickbacks to "marketers" who recruited homeless people and transported them to Tustin Hospital. The center recruited homeless people to receive unnecessary health services and others to refer homeless Medicare and Medi-Cal beneficiaries to Tustin Hospital for in-patient hospital stays.
5. Misidentification Prompts Huge Law Suit
NBC News4 in Washington, DC, reported on a Maryland man who claimed he was assaulted by security guards when he tried to leave Prince George's Hospital in June after he was told he was scheduled for a surgery he didn't need. Joseph Wheeler is suing the hospital and its security contractor for $13 million. Wheeler was taken to PGH and admitted overnight for minor injuries sustained in a car accident. When he woke up the next day in his hospital bed he was told he was slated to have a cancerous mass removed from his chest.
Wheeler's wife told the nurse the ID bracelet the hospital put on her husband was for somebody else, but the nurse allegedly ignored her. Wheeler dressed, ripped the IV from his arm and started to leave, when the nurse called security guards who allegedly restrained, cursed and berated him. "He was taken to a hospital, which really should be a house of healing, and he got there and it turned into a house of horrors for him," Bryan Dugan, Wheeler's attorney, told News4.
6.Disgraced Healthcare Exec Wins Florida Governor's Race
A whistleblower in the Columbia/HCA fraud case told the Naples (FL) News in August that Rick Scott should have known of billing practices at his hospitals that cheated the federal government out of millions of dollars. "He was a fairly hands-on CEO," said John Schilling, a former reimbursement supervisor in the Fort Myers division office. "He should have known being CEO of a multibillion-dollar company. He should have known what is on his balance sheet." Scott was forced to resign in 1997 shortly after the FBI began widespread raids of Columbia/HCA offices. Ultimately, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States paid a record $1.7 billion in criminal and civil fines for Medicare fraud. In television ads and on the campaign trail, Scott repeatedly said he takes responsibility for what happened at the company and says he learned from it. A slim majority of voters apparently believed Scott, and elected him Florida governor in November.
7. Judges Give Golf Injury Suit the Hook
The Associated Press reports that a New York State appeals court in December tossed out a personal injury lawsuit filed by a physician who'd lost an eye when his physician-golfing buddy hit him with an errant golf ball. Physicians Anoop Kapoor and Azad Anand were playing on a nine-hole Long Island course in 2002 when Anand was hit in the head while looking for his ball on a fairway, blinding him in one eye. The seven judges on the state Court of Appeals, siding with lower courts, said Kapoor's failure to yell in advance of his errant shot from the rough did not amount to intentional or reckless conduct. "The manner in which Anand was injured — being hit without warning by a 'shanked' shot while one searches for one's own ball — reflects a commonly appreciated risk of golf," the judges wrote.
8. Discredited Doctor Deals Death Down Under
Weird medicine is practice all over the world. The Australian newspaper reported in November on the disappearance of a discredited Austrian doctor Hellfried Sartori, who used the industrial solvent DMSO to treat cancer. The bizarre therapy had been linked to at least five deaths, including that of a 42-year old breast cancer patient who'd travelled from New York for the treatments, and who'd vomited a green fluid before she was admitted to a hospital and died. Sartori reportedly is now acting as a consultant for a wellbeing retreat in Columbia.
9. Former USVI Hospital CEO Arrested Again for Fraud
Already convicting in 2009 for falsifying his government job application, Rodney E. Miller, the former CEO of the Roy Lester Schneider Medical Center in the US Virgin Islands was rearrested by federal authorities in March for allegedly presenting false evidence during that trial. Miller was charged with one count of Preparing False Evidence, one count of Offering False Documents in Evidence and one count of Attempted Fraudulent Claims Upon the Government. A Department of Justice investigation revealed that during his February 2009 trial on a charge of Filing Fraudulent Claims Upon the Government, Miller – who'd lied about his service in the U.S. Navy -- tried to present a fake military ID card as evidence.
10. EMTs Pay Real Money for Fake Certification
The Boston Globe reported in May that at least 200 emergency medical technicians and paramedics in Massachusetts and New Hampshire have been practicing without legitimate certification, paying for fake credentials, rather than receiving medical training. An ongoing investigation has so far determined that training companies illegally authorized state credentials for first responders in at least a dozen communities, state officials told the newspaper.
11. Mystery Lottery Winner Gives Hospital $10K Ticket
A generous Kansas Lottery player has given the Mitchell County Regional Medical Foundation in Beloit, KS, the gift of a $10,000 winning Powerball ticket. The surprise gift arrived in the mail anonymously July 28 with this note: "Please accept this gift for the Mitchell County Regional Medical Foundation for the good work you do. God Bless!" The ticket arrived at the hospital, unsigned. The $10,000 winning ticket matched four of the first five numbers and the Powerball in the July 17 Powerball drawing. The Lottery knows where and when the ticket was purchased but no one knows the identity of the player who purchased the ticket.
12. This is a Bust!
The Associated Press reported in December that police in Boise, ID, busted a woman for allegedly impersonating a plastic surgeon and conducting breast exams on at least two women in local bars. Kristina B. Ross, 37, was charged with unlicensed practice of medicine. Police were tipped off by employees of a licensed plastic surgeon who said they were calling to schedule appointments with Dr. Berlyn Aussieahshowna. But no doctor by that name worked at the office. Police contacted the women who had called and they identified Ross, who does not have a license to practice medicine.
13. Thank God it Wasn't 3D!
A pharmacy manager at a Wayne (PA) hospital was fired and slapped with an invasion of privacy charge after he admitted placing a hidden camera in the ceiling of a men's bathroom at St. Joseph's Hospital. Leonardo Zoppa, 34, was arrested in early November after he allegedly admitted to placing cameras in two other bathrooms, a Barnes and Noble, and a gym. Police said Zoppa allegedly told a co-worker: "I put that camera in the bathroom. I have a problem."
John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.