• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Is there a killer in your ED?

Emergency Management Alert, December 29, 2006

Is there a killer in your ED?

Don't laugh: A report this month in the Journal of Forensic Sciences says that more than 2,100 suspicious deaths worldwide are linked to to 54 doctors and nurses convicted of serial murder or lesser charges since 1970.

Serial killers, said the report, may easily jump from hospital to hospital, not only because facilities don't do a thorough enough background check on new hires but also because they don't warn other facilities of problem employees for fear that they'll be sued for defaming the charge's character. (Remember, not one of the 10 hospitals at which convicted killer Charles Cullen worked gave him a bad reference, despite the fact that he'd been fired, suspended, and reprimanded many times during his 16-year career. Cullen, who killed 40 people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was sentenced this year to serve multiple life sentences after confessing to the crimes.)

Part of the reason people squeak through is that employers afraid of giving a bad reference will offer a neutral reference. Ethics relating to this practice are detailed in this Christian Science Monitor article.

The report also says that hospital crimes are harder to solve, in part because HCWs don't take the same precautions that police might at a crime scene, lessening the chance that vital evidence is kept.

The Journal is published by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, a nonprofit professional society with a stated mission "to improve the administration and the achievement of justice through the application of science to the processes of law."

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive