Angels of Death

The news that somebody at a West Virginia VA medical center wasapparently murdering patients with insulin overdoses is the latest reminder of a phenomenon that occurs disturbingly often. The denominator of all the medical professionals in the world is obviously very large, so the dozens who have been identified as serial killers don ' t mean you are at notable risk, but still. Actually there must be many more since one of the perks of being a physician or a nurse is that you can get away with being a serial killer pretty easily.The most notorious is probably the British GP Harold Shipman,who killed at least 218 of his own patients according to an extensive investigation. He started out killing elderly women who did not have a long life expectancy, and perhaps he told himself he was acting out of mercy. But as time went on he relaxed his standards and started killing perfectly healthy people. He did it during house calls by injecting an overdose of heroin, which is used legally in the UK under the name diamorphone. He was only caught because he crudely forged a will of one of his victims to get her estate. Possibly at some level he wanted to be caught.Donald Harvey was a nursing aide whoplead guilty to murdering 37 people in Kentucky and Ohio but likely killed many more. He said these were mercy killings but he also murdered an ex-boyfriend and other acquaintances. It is particularly disturbing that he used a variety of methods, which were generally not as hard to detect as he...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs