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Все познается в сравнении, отечественные "герои" современной стентологии выглядят просто ангелами. Представляю нового кумира для любителей крайностей - Samuel DeMaio. Полная статья [Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ]
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Patient C's death

The board's complaint says one man it identifies only as Patient C died after he came to DeMaio in November 2007 with a history of chest pain and a previous bypass surgery. Over the next eight months, DeMaio put at least 21 stents into the man, causing him to suffer from in-stent stenosis — a re-narrowing or blocking of the artery after a stent was placed, according to the complaint.

The patient returned to DeMaio in July 2008 with a total blockage of one main artery and decreased heart pumping capacity, the complaint says. Unnecessary stents were put in "areas of mild and diffuse disease ... and exposed Patient C to serious complications ... and ultimately his death," the complaint says.

DeMaio implanted a defibrillator, which the board's complaint said the patient was not a candidate for given his condition, and six days later, "Patient C began to experience an irregular heart beat and the AICD (automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator) began to discharge."

The defibrillator continued shocking the patient into the next day, according to the complaint. Lisa Jones, a nurse who worked with DeMaio for 7½ years, said the patient's screams could be heard throughout the Westlake hospital.

"It affected everyone. You didn't have to be on the staff; you just had to be in the building to hear the guy screaming," Jones said. "It was very traumatic to hear him screaming, and to see the family and to know how much he was suffering."

DeMaio did all he could, said Jones, who coordinated DeMaio's research for medical companies, mainly on stents. She said that she believes his treatment of the patient was proper and added that DeMaio "was very demanding about how he wanted his patients treated and passionate about his work."

As the shocks continued into the second day, DeMaio conferred with the family, gave the patient two doses of the anesthetic propofol and put a magnet over the defibrillator to stop it from discharging, the board's complaint says. The patient went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. The propofol doses were not documented as board rules require, the complaint says.

DeMaio said that the patient was beyond all treatment and once he put the magnet over the patient's skin, death would be imminent because the defibrillator could no longer shock the heart back to a normal rhythm. The patient and his family were crying, so the propofol was to calm the patient, DeMaio said.

DeMaio said it was the nurse's responsibility to document the propofol because it was "during a code situation" — a medical emergency.

The patient was first treated by a colleague who put in some of the stents, DeMaio said. DeMaio said he placed the other stents "over a period of years," not the eight months the complaint says. He added that the defibrillator was necessary and questioned the qualifications of the unnamed experts the board consulted to review DeMaio's records.

"I don't get to know who their experts are," DeMaio said. "I don't get to know who is making the accusation."

A spokeswoman for the Medical Board said that as a matter of policy, its lawyers don't comment on cases.

The patient's family has not filed a lawsuit.

The man with 32 stents

Four of the five patients who filed malpractice suits against DeMaio either declined to comment or did not return calls after their lawyer, Jay Winckler of Austin, advised them not to talk. The fifth could not be reached.

"I don't see it as helping my clients," Winckler said.

Donald Spann of Landrum, S.C., who is in his early 80s, is among the five. His lawsuit alleges that DeMaio inserted as many as 32 stents in his arteries over 13 months.

Dr. Jeffrey Rade, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and a cardiologist hired by Winckler as an expert to review four of the cases, wrote in a report accompanying Spann's lawsuit that "this gratuitous and egregious placement of (more than 2 feet of) stents ... subjected Mr. Spann to the pain and risks of unnecessary procedures including exposure to ionizing radiation ... death, myocardial infarction (heart attack), stroke, bleeding, vascular injury and kidney damage." He added that Spann was at risk for stent thrombosis, which is a blood clot that forms on the stent, "a potentially catastrophic complication associated with a ~50% mortality rate."

In Spann's and several of the other lawsuits, Rade wrote that DeMaio overestimated the severity of the patients' illness, overused stents and put them at risk for severe medical problems.

DeMaio denies those allegations.

He said he recommended that the patient with the 32 stents, whom he declined to name so as not to breach patient confidentiality, have bypass surgery, but the patient refused. But rather than abandon the patient, DeMaio said, he chose to help him by inserting stents and monitoring him.

Dr. Rodney Davenport, a dentist in Greenville, has been seeing DeMaio since 1996 when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at age 51. DeMaio recommended he have a bypass, but his veins weren't good enough, and he's since had about 15 stents placed by DeMaio and "probably 20 angiograms," Davenport said.

Now 66, Davenport said he has followed DeMaio to Austin and now to El Paso to remain his patient.

So has Fred Fernandez, 60, of Fort Worth, who said he has 54 or 55 stents and an unknown number of angioplasties. All but two of the stents were placed by DeMaio, he said.