From Boston Globe Part Two:
Second of two parts
"Dr. Mark Korson, a soft-spoken, goateed native of Canada, prided himself on always keeping his cool, even when the highly stressed patients and families around him were losing theirs."
"Still, as the chief of metabolism at Tufts Medical Center sat in his cluttered third-floor office in Chinatown last April, his frustration began to boil over. Two months earlier, Korson had sent a 14-year-old patient, Justina Pelletier, to Boston Childrens Hospital to see a former colleague of his who had previously treated the girl for gastrointestinal problems. But things had rapidly gotten off track."
"In short order, a team of different Childrens doctors had disputed Korsons working diagnosis of mitochondrial disease for Justina and accused her parents of medical child abuse. This paved the way for the state child protection agency to intervene and strip the parents of custody on an emergency basis. From there, Justina, against her strong objections, was moved into the hospitals locked psychiatric ward. Childrens and the state had ignored Korsons requests to be included in a roundtable meeting to discuss Justinas care."
"Staring at his desktop computer, ... Korson started to type. The 55-year-old doctor was getting daily calls from Justinas parents, Linda and Lou Pelletier of West Hartford, Conn., each one more frantic than the last. Yet he felt he had no answers for them. I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with the process at Childrens Hospital to evaluate Justina, he wrote to the girls court-appointed attorney."
"Korson stressed that there were no empirical tests to support the hospitals new psychiatric diagnosis for Justina of somatoform disorder, which describes a patient with symptoms that are real but for which no physical or biological explanation can be found. It is a clinical hunch, he wrote, a best guess."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...l-uncertain/Y7qvYTGsq8QklkxUZvuUgP/story.html
He obviously shouldn't have sent her to Children's if he wanted to maintain control. And, I wonder about the existence of empirical evidence regarding his diagnosis of mitochrondrial disease. Too many people whose egos require them to be 'right'.
Second of two parts
"Dr. Mark Korson, a soft-spoken, goateed native of Canada, prided himself on always keeping his cool, even when the highly stressed patients and families around him were losing theirs."
"Still, as the chief of metabolism at Tufts Medical Center sat in his cluttered third-floor office in Chinatown last April, his frustration began to boil over. Two months earlier, Korson had sent a 14-year-old patient, Justina Pelletier, to Boston Childrens Hospital to see a former colleague of his who had previously treated the girl for gastrointestinal problems. But things had rapidly gotten off track."
"In short order, a team of different Childrens doctors had disputed Korsons working diagnosis of mitochondrial disease for Justina and accused her parents of medical child abuse. This paved the way for the state child protection agency to intervene and strip the parents of custody on an emergency basis. From there, Justina, against her strong objections, was moved into the hospitals locked psychiatric ward. Childrens and the state had ignored Korsons requests to be included in a roundtable meeting to discuss Justinas care."
"Staring at his desktop computer, ... Korson started to type. The 55-year-old doctor was getting daily calls from Justinas parents, Linda and Lou Pelletier of West Hartford, Conn., each one more frantic than the last. Yet he felt he had no answers for them. I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with the process at Childrens Hospital to evaluate Justina, he wrote to the girls court-appointed attorney."
"Korson stressed that there were no empirical tests to support the hospitals new psychiatric diagnosis for Justina of somatoform disorder, which describes a patient with symptoms that are real but for which no physical or biological explanation can be found. It is a clinical hunch, he wrote, a best guess."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...l-uncertain/Y7qvYTGsq8QklkxUZvuUgP/story.html
He obviously shouldn't have sent her to Children's if he wanted to maintain control. And, I wonder about the existence of empirical evidence regarding his diagnosis of mitochrondrial disease. Too many people whose egos require them to be 'right'.