Month: July 2014

WASHINGTON:

Beware of the doctor who has anything more than a stethoscope around his neck. Perhaps even that — or a pen peeping prominently out of his shirt or jacket pocket. Illustrative of the growing possibilities that technology — particularly miniaturization of electronics — provides for predatory sexual behavior, a top US hospital has agreed to pay $190 million to settle claims from thousands of women who may have been surreptitiously recorded during pelvic exams by a gynecologist who committed suicide subsequent to the expose.

The case centers on Dr Nikita Levy, a prominent and popular ob-gyn for 25 years at the Johns Hopkins Community Medicine system in Baltimore, who reportedly used a camera pen strung around his neck to secretly record women for years during examinations. A female colleague who got suspicious of his behavior eventually brought it to the notice of authorities. Investigators confronted Dr Levy found more than 1,300 videos and images during searches of Levy’s home and office, most of them recorded through pen cameras and key fobs, leading to his firing in February 2013.

Ten days later, he committed suicide after writing an apology note to his wife and three children. Hospitals has been dealing with the fallout ever since, and on Monday, the hospital announced that it would pay $190 million — one of the largest settlements involving sexual misconduct by a physician — to settle the case. More than 7,000 women are expected to receive compensation from the settlement. Although Levy examined more than 12,000 women during his career at Hopkins, he began his recording them only in 2005.

The women could not be identified from the images, which were mostly of genitalia, but attorneys involved in the case said all former patients could be considered victims because of the feeling of betrayal and trauma they felt by the invasion of doctor-patient confidentiality. Each plaintiff is expected to be evaluated by a team of professionals, including a psychiatrist, and placed into one of four categories, based on the degree to which they were affected.

“Many of our clients still feel a betrayal and lack of trust and have fallen out of the medical system,” Jonathan Schochor, the lead attorney for the patients in the classaction lawsuit, told the Baltimore Sun. “They stopped seeing their doctors, they stopped taking their children to doctors. They refused to see male ob-gyns, or any ob-gyn. Their lives, needless to say, have been severely and negatively impacted.”

INDIANAPOLIS (TIP):

A US teenager who was attempting to set a record for an around-the-world flight was killed when his plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean, and crews were searching on July 23 for his father, who was also on board. Family spokeswoman Annie Hayat said the plane flown by 17-year-old Haris Suleman went down shortly after leaving Pago Pago in American Samoa on Tuesday night. Hayat said the body of Haris Suleman had been recovered, but crews were still looking for Pakistani-born Babar Suleman.

The teenager’s sister, Hiba Suleman, said the trip had been a dream of her father’s for years and that her brother was also excited about it. Haris Suleman had recently obtained his pilot’s license and instrument rating, which authorized him to fly an aircraft over oceans, and planned to be the pilot in command except in an emergency. Hiba Suleman told reporters on Wednesday that her father and brother had undergone training in how to handle an ocean landing and wore protective suits while flying over water.

The Sulemans left Indiana state on June 19 in hopes of making the trip in 30 days to set the record for the fastest circumnavigation around the world in a single-engine airplane with the youngest pilot in command to do so. The father and son were using the trip to raise money for the Citizens Foundation, a nonprofit that builds schools in Pakistan. They missed the 30-day timetable, in part due to food-borne illness, but planned to return home on Sunday.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor in Los Angeles said the single-engine Hawker Beechcraft plane crashed into the ocean Tuesday night under unknown circumstances. The tail number provided by the FAA shows the plane is registered to a limited liability company whose address matches Babar Suleman’s home address in Plainfield, Indiana. US Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Melissa McKenzie said witnesses reported seeing the Honolulubound plane crash about a mile from shore shortly after taking off from Pago Pago International Airport.

The Sulemans had made stops throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific, and the teenager told The Indianapolis Star earlier this month that he was enjoying each visit. “There is so much beauty and culture in each country that I couldn’t possibly witness all that I want to in the span of two days,” he said in an email to the newspaper. “That’s the maximum time we’ve been able to spend at a stop.”

PHOENIZ:

An Arizona inmate took almost two hours to die by lethal injection on July 22 and his lawyers said he “gasped and snorted” before succumbing in the latest botched execution to raise questions about the death penalty in the US. The execution of convicted double murderer Joseph Wood began at 1.52pm at a state prison complex, and the 55- year-old was pronounced dead just shy of two hours later at 3.49pm, the Arizona attorney general’s office said. During that time, his lawyers filed an unsuccessful emergency appeal to multiple federal courts that sought to have the execution halted and their client given life-saving medical treatment.

The appeal, which said the procedure violated his constitutional right to be executed without suffering cruel and unusual punishment, was denied by Justice Anthony Kennedy of the US Supreme Court. “He gasped and struggled to breathe for about an hour and 40 minutes,” said one of Wood’s attorneys, Dale Baich. “Arizona appears to have joined several other states who have been responsible for an entirely preventable horror: a bungled execution. The public should hold its officials responsible.

” Arizona Governor Jan Brewer expressed concern over how long the procedure took and ordered the state’s Department of Corrections to conduct a full review, but said justice had been done and that the execution was lawful. Inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer,” the Republican governor said.

“This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims, and the lifetime of suffering he caused their family.” A journalist who witnessed the execution said he counted the inmate gasping for breath about 660 times. “I just know it was not efficient,” said the reporter, Michael Kiefer. “It took a long time.