“I think it might be a better idea – I know it’s a crazy idea – but maybe we focus on the issues impacting the American people and what candidates are saying, rather than just spending so much time exploring their lives of 30 or 40 years ago,”
–Bernie Sanders, Meet the Press
A DB article with the headline blurb:
Ben Carson Was Sued for Malpractice at Least Eight Times
This reminds me of the joke,
The Pope is visiting DC and President Bush takes him out for an afternoon on the Potomac, sailing on the presidential yacht.
They’re admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Pope’s hat blows off his head and into the water. The Secret Service men start to launch a boat, but Bush waves them off, saying, “Wait, wait. I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry.”
Bush then steps off the yacht and onto the surface of the water. He walks out to the Holy Father’s hat, bends over and picks it up, then walks back across the water to the yacht and climbs aboard. He hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence.
The next morning the topic of conversation among Democrats on the Hill, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, the New York Times, Hollywood celebrities, and in France and Germany is “Bush Can’t Swim.”
While it’s certainly often the case that the headline blurb is created by someone other than the writer, it’s difficult not to believe that Gideon Resnick, the writer of the DB article, doesn’t have a political agenda (just look at his previous writings). He attempts to take a non-malicious tone (probably because he couldn’t find any actual mud that could actually stick); but it’s difficult to believe the premise for the article wasn’t for lack in wanting to find something juicy and sensationalist as well as politically damaging to Dr. Carson’s presidential aspirations.
At least Resnick has enough journalistic integrity in his brains to conclude his piece with the money quote:
Despite the MRI malpractice case, though, most experts agree that Carson had a very small amount of blemishes for a job that is as hard as it gets.
“It doesn’t seem outrageous to me, to be honest with you,” Karten said. “This is a very risky area that you’re operating in, the brain. There’s a lot of questions on what a patient is told. But that doesn’t mean it’s malpractice. You have to do something or deviate from the standard of care. I don’t think this is a tremendous amount of malpractice over the years he’s been practicing.”
Thank you Daily Beast for contextualizing and setting the record straight….at least at the bottom of the article and not for a lack of trying in digging up dirt on his past as a neurosurgeon.
As everyone with a lick of sense knows, most doctors will be sued sometime in their career:
The study also reported that, although many suits are filed, relatively few are successful. The aggrieved patient wins only 22 percent of the time.
The study’s findings are not a huge revelation to malpractice insurers, of course.
~~~ The physicians with the highest risk of being sued were the neurosurgeons, with an annual risk of 19.1 percent
~~~ In the study conclusion, Jena and colleagues wrote: “Our results may speak to why physicians consistently report concern over malpractice and the intense pressure to practice defensive medicine, despite evidence that the scope of defensive medicine is modest.”
In Carson’s long career, eight is a pretty low number.
How good of a neurosurgeon is Ben Carson?
Johns Hopkins and Baltimore, Maryland would become his home for most of his career, as Dr. Carson went on to direct pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for 29 years.
Some of Dr. Carson’s career highlights include the first successful separation of craniopagus (Siamese) twins joined at the back of the head in 1987, the first completely successful separation of type-2 vertical craniopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa, and the first successful placement of an intrauterine shunt for a hydrocephalic twin.
I would rank Dr. Carson on a scale above “Ok doctor”.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.