Ep 71-Fentanyl On The Night Shift

A single syringe can hold a hard truth: in an ICU, the difference between mercy and harm can come down to dose, intent, and whether anyone has the power to stop what’s happening. We start with a stormy night and a very real tornado scare, then step into Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where families keep vigil under fluorescent lights and trust a confident physician to guide them through the worst moment of their lives.

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Resources: 

1. William Husel — Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Husel 

2. WOSU Public Media — Timeline: The Mount Carmel Scandal So Far — https://www.wosu.org/news/2019-01-23/timeline-the-mount-carmel-scandal-so-far 

3. WOSU Public Media — William Husel Found Not Guilty — https://www.wosu.org/news/2022-04-20/william-husel-found-not-guilty-in-one-of-ohios-largest-murder-cases 

4. WOSU Public Media — Husel Sues Trinity Health — https://www.wosu.org/news/2023-04-14/former-mount-carmel-west-doctor-william-husel-sues-hospital-parent-trinity-health 

5. WOSU Public Media — Malicious Prosecution Lawsuit Dismissed — https://www.wosu.org/news/2024-03-29/former-doctors-malicious-prosecution-lawsuit-against-mount-carmel-wests-parent-company-dismissed 

6. WOSU Public Media — Judge Ends Husel's Defamation Case — https://www.wosu.org/news/2025-06-16/judge-ends-husels-defamation-case-before-it-goes-to-jury 

7. WOSU Public Media — Board Examiner Recommends Nurses Temporarily Lose Licenses — https://www.wosu.org/news/2020-05-12/board-examiner-recommends-two-nurses-temporarily-lose-licenses-over-husel-case 

8. WOSU Public Media — Mount Carmel Pays $9 Million to Families of Two Husel Patients — https://www.wosu.org/news/2019-08-27/mount-carmel-pays-9-million-to-families-of-two-husel-patients 

9. WOSU Public Media — Mount Carmel Outlines Failed Safeguards, Corrective Actions — https://www.wosu.org/news/2019-02-12/mount-carmel-outlines-failed-safeguards-corrective-actions-in-new-plan 

10. Medscape — Doc Accused of Killing 14 Patients Found Not Guilty on All Counts — https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/972525 

11. CNN — What We Know About the Ohio Doctor Accused of Ordering Excessive Fentanyl Doses — https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/us/william-husel-fentanyl-deaths-trial 

12. CNN — Colleagues of Doctor Charged with Murder Sue Hospital — https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/20/us/husel-nurses-sue-hospital 

13. The New York Times — One Doctor, 25 Overdose Deaths, and a Reckoning for a Hospital — https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/ohio-doctor-overdose.html 

14. WSYX/ABC6 — William Husel Still Faces "Dr. Death" Stigma After Acquittal — https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/william-husel-still-faces-dr-death-stigma-acquitted-of-murder-doctor-hospital-mount-carmel-west-trinity-health-patients-medicine 

15. WSYX/ABC6 — Mount Carmel Families Settle Wrongful Death Lawsuits for $16 Million — https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/william-husel-case-mount-carmel-7-families-settle-wrongful-death-civil-lawsuits-16-million-fentanyl 

16. Columbus Business First — Mount Carmel Final Husel Settlements Exceed $40 Million — https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2023/04/28/mount-carmel-final-husel-settlements.html 

17. Ohio Attorney General — Call to Suspend Husel's Medical License — https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Media/News-Releases/January-2019/Ohio-Attorney-General-Yost-Calls-on-the-State-Medi 

18. Drug Topics — Pharmacists Among Those Fired in Hospital Fentanyl Deaths Case — https://www.drugtopics.com/view/pharmacists-among-those-fired-hospital-fentanyl-deaths-case 

19. Nurse.org — Medical Professionals React to Husel Verdict — https://nurse.org/articles/doctor-william-husel-verdict/ 

20. Medical Justice — The Line Between Comfort Care and Murder — https://medicaljustice.com/blog/the-line-between-comfort-care-and-murder-physician-accused-of-murdering-14-patients-found-not-guilty/ 

21. Court TV — Judge Tosses Defamation Case from William Husel — https://www.courttv.com/news/judge-tosses-defamation-case-from-william-husel-acquitted-of-killing-patients/ 

22. KSL/Associated Press — Two Nurses' Licenses Suspended in Cases Linked to Indicted Doctor — https://www.ksl.com/article/46779890/2-nurses-licenses-suspended-in-cases-linked-to-indicted-doc 

23. WTTE/Fox 28 — Mount Carmel President Resigns as Internal Investigation Concludes — https://myfox28columbus.com/news/local/mount-carmel-president-resigns-as-internal-investigation-of-dr-husel-concludes 

24. Mount Carmel College of Nursing — Mount Carmel West Move-Out Date — https://www.mccn.edu/news/in-the-news/move-out-date-for-mount-carmel-west-set-for-february-24 

25. Reddit r/serialkillers — William Husel Discussion Thread —

Transcript

Opening Banter And Tornado Scare

SPEAKER_00 0:01

A man da Jojo Jojo Jenna.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

If you saw me frantically grabbing for my microphone, as I was like, what am I missing?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Ah, my hands are under.

SPEAKER_05 0:18

How the hecky darn are you, my friend?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I am so good.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

I'm always good.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'm so good. Summer bright.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

So good. Bom, bum bum bum bum. Summer bright. Little James Brown. Ba na. You wish you could be like Amanda right now. So good. So good.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

Yeah, we're a little off the rails already, but hey, welcome. Hi.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Hi, how are ya?

SPEAKER_04 0:55

I am. I'm just gonna put it out there right now. We have hail, we have thunder, and we also have a little PTSD because I thought all I had to worry about were bears in my backyard. But last night, not only do they not have sirens, so you have to listen to your phone, but this tornado decided to drop down, you know, within about seven miles of my house last night. And as the sirens on my phone were going off, like, you know, take cover, I was like, huh, I guess I've never really thought about this. This little rental place is a rambler that's all one floor. Lots of windows. Where do you go? Even in the bathroom above the bathtub. Where does one go? So then I remembered, oh, I saw a little trapdoor in the kitchen area. So I pull said trapdoor up, and the sky's green outside, and it's black at eight o'clock at night, and you know, it's normally light till 10. I'm thinking, all right, I don't know how much time I have. Let's see where if we're gonna go down here. And I pull this trapdoor out and I look down and it's black. It's pitch black. Nope. And there's a rickety ladder, and I don't know if there's a light, and I'm pretty sure it's mud down there, and I don't know about if there's dead bodies. And I apologize if my landlady is listening to this, but I listened to far too much true crime to be able to unwittingly go into a heretofore unexplored crawl space. Instead, I decided I'm gonna just, you know, take my bets with the tornado. And I put the thing back on and I got in the bathtub, even though there was a window above the bathtub, and I read somewhere, you're supposed to put a pot on your head, like as a helmet. You know, in case something falls on you, right? So I go to I'm like, I get out of the bathtub, go to my pots and pants, and because I don't have my normal cookery crockery here, I didn't have a pot big enough for my gargantuan head. So I had no helmet. I had a tiny little pot that you know I used for noodles and rice, and it didn't fit on my big crown, my big cranium. So I just sat in the bathtub and thought, all right, well, we'll see what happens. Lo and behold, it did touch down, but thankfully not in my area, but very, very close, and it devastated a lot of property, a lot of boats, a lot of houses and sheds. Injured two people who were in the hospital, but hopefully it's they're expected to survive. So that's my exciting news from from yesterday. But yet tonight we have the same weather pattern set up. We have a black sky, we have hail, and the sky is looking greenish. So if if I have to abruptly leave, Amanda's gonna take over while I try to cram a too small pot on my head in the bathtub.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I was gonna say, if Jenna has to go sit in the tub with the pot on her head, we're just gonna keep on going. And sorry, you guys will just be stuck with me. Maybe forever if the tornado. Um actually, you guys, I don't know how to edit. So uh I think that would be the end of us.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

That would be the end of all of us. Oh no, we can't do that. All right. Well, I promise I'll do my best to survive and maybe just get a bigger pot to bring up north. Birthday idea.

SPEAKER_05 4:25

Oh, bless.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Hmm. Well, let's get into it then. I don't think there are any corrections from last week. I did say that I was going to reach out to an ophthalmologist about if the iris gives away any indications of projected health issues. I still have to do that. So sorry.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Girl, you got time. That'll be interesting no matter when you bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

And then I also said that I was going to look up the stats of pre-eclampsia fatalities.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Not last episode, but the one before. And I still haven't done that either. So the bad student award goes to meet.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

No. And good podcaster award with a busy mama sidebar.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, you guys, my child doesn't nap, so limited on the time. Like, he's very enjoyable, happy.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

He doesn't nap. So anyway. You can't get your stuff done in the middle of the day. Yeah, there's no catch-up time. Herod's like, how's maternity leave? I'm like, what are you talking about? So busy.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

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SPEAKER_01 6:20

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SPEAKER_03 7:05

30%. Push pause. Go to it. 30% right now.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Oh shoot. You know how I was like, I'm gonna work on my trigger warnings. Yeah, I'll have that blank.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

That's what I thought you were gonna say in the correction section.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

No.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Uh just stumbled upon that one here.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

I would just skip it then. You don't even need to talk about it. You know what, folks?

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Uh no triggers again. Sorry. I can take it out. No. I can take this out. It's fine. No? Leave it in. Yeah, don't do it.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Okay, so um that brings us to our story, shall we? We shall. Okay, great. Okay. It's three in the morning in the ICU at Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. The hallways are quiet. That particular kind of quiet in the hospital that isn't really quiet at all. It's just muted by exhaustion and resignation. Behind a curtain in one of the ICU bays, a family keeps a vigil. A wife and a grown son. They've been there for hours sitting in the hard plastic chairs under those horrible fluorescent lights, watching a man that they love breathe through a machine. The patient is only 39 years old. He came in with trouble breathing. Nothing that seemed catastrophic, just an ambulance ride and an ER visit, but then

A 39-Year-Old Dies In ICU

SPEAKER_01 8:28

came the cardiac events, one after another, and now he's on a ventilator in the ICU, and the family is waiting for someone to tell them what happens next. A doctor arrives. He's tall, athletic, good looking. He's a former basketball captain who trained at the Cleveland Clinic, which is arguably one of the best programs in the country. And the nurses adore him. In fact, he won their award for best physician in the hospital. He is calm and confident and speaks to the family with what feels like compassion. He tells them their loved one is brain dead and that his organs are failing, that there's nothing more that they can do. He suggests medication to make the patient comfortable to ease the passing. He'll go quickly, the doctor says. The family nods in agreement. I mean, what else can they do? They trust the man in the white coat. Yeah. Oh my god. A nurse retrieves a syringe from the Pixis. She doesn't call the pharmacist. She just uses the override to gain access. The doctor has given a verbal order, after all. And what is she gonna tell him now? 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl. 1,000 micrograms. That is 10 times the normal dose for comfort care and 20 times what the hospital's own guidelines recommend. Whoa. The syringe goes into the IV line within minutes. The patient stops breathing, the monitor flatlines, and the family weeps, the doctor offers condolences, and the death certificate will say natural causes, and the word fentanyl will not appear. And then it happens again and again and again and again. Unconscionable. 35, 35 patients, all dead under the care of one doctor, all after receiving doses of fentanyl so massive that a prosecution expert would later say they were enough to kill an elephant. For five years, no one stopped him. Not the nurses who drew up the syringes, not the pharmacists who saw the orders, and not the hospital administrators who were supposed to be watching. Five years and 35 deaths. One doctor with whom everyone should have stayed suspicious. And this is the story of the fentanyl murders of Dr. William Hussell.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

What a guy.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

This is horrific. He's really charismatic, though. He was a basketball captain, Jenna. Man. Mm-hmm. William Scott Hewsell was born on November 11th, 1975, and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a city of steel mills and Catholic parishes where hard work and ambition could springboard you into a bright future. He attended St. Ignatius High School, a Jesuit preparatory school on the west side of the city, known for its rigorous academics and powerhouse athletics. Heusell thrived there. He was smart and athletic, and by his senior year he was captain of the basketball

William Husel’s Rise And Pipe Bomb

SPEAKER_01 11:30

team. He was a true leader and a competitor, the kind of kid that people noticed. He graduated in 1994 and it seemed like the world was waiting for him. But the world William Hussell first stepped into after high school was not a lecture hall or a basketball court, it was a courtroom. In the fall of 1994, barely weeks into his freshman year at Wheeling Jesuit College in West Virginia, Husel built a pipe bomb.

unknown 11:57

What?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

He detonated it near the campus health and recreation center, destroying a trash can. Then he and a classmate tried to frame another student for the incident. They were caught, and Husel was charged with malicious damage by explosive device, possession of an unregistered explosive device, and unlawful manufacture of an explosive device. He was sentenced to six months in a community confinement center and one year of supervised release. It was a bizarre and rather alarming episode, the kind of thing that would uh resurface years later when people were searching for early warning signs of something darker. But at the time it was treated as a youthful mistake, just a detour, not a destination for him.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

I mean, this is a whole bouquet of red flags, just saying. Holy smokes.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

With a red ribbon.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah. So after his legal troubles, Husell transferred to Ohio State University, where he earned a degree in microbiology in 2000. He then enrolled at the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, graduating in 2008 with a DO, which, as probably most of us know, is a doctor of osteopathic medicine. And those who don't know, a DO is a fully licensed physician with the same legal authority as an MD. Then came the Crown Jewel, a residency and fellowship in critical care medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, which is, again, one of the most prestigious medical training programs in the United States. He would spend five years at the Cleveland Clinic. Five years of intense training in the most demanding environment in medicine, the ICU, where life and death intersect every hour of every day. The Cleveland Clinic would later conduct an internal review of Hewsell's time there. They found no concerns, no complaints, no red flags, not a bouquet of them, and he was, by all accounts, an exemplary trainee. In 2013, Heusell took his first independent physician position when he was hired as an intensivist at Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. So this was a Catholic hospital in the working-class Franklin neighborhood, which was founded in 1886 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Heusell was assigned to the overnight shift in the ICU. And as we know, the overnight shifts are the hours when the hospital's administrative infrastructure goes home, when the daytime supervisors that typically govern physicians' conduct are gone. And during those night hours, he was the sole physician in the unit making life and death decisions in the wee hours of the morning with minimal oversight. And by all accounts, he was extraordinary at it. As I mentioned before, the nurses absolutely loved him. He was described as cool and good looking with big muscles. A doctor who actually listened, who taught them, who treated them like colleagues rather than peons. Former nurses put it simply: quote, he cares for his patients, and I love him because he is an amazing doctor, end quote. In 2014, just one year into his career, Husel received the Physician Recognition Award, which is voted on by the nursing staff as the hospital's top physician. By 2018, he was being considered for the same award again. So very charismatic guy. Obviously, yeah. In October 2017, Husel married Mariah Baird, a registered nurse who worked alongside him. She would later describe him with the same reverence as his other colleagues, saying he was really good at what he did. The couple together had three children, and to the outside world, William Husel had completed one of the great American redemption arcs. A troubled kid from Cleveland who built a pipe bomb in college, had remade himself into a decorated and respected physician, a devoted husband, and a great dad. He earned the trust of the nurses, his patients, and their families. But there was something happening on that overnight shift. Something that wouldn't come to light for five years, and something that would turn the physician recognition award winner into a defendant facing 25 counts of murder.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

So what exactly was happening in the ICU, you may be wondering? To understand what William Heusell is accused of doing, we must first understand a medical procedure called palliative extibating, which is the removal of the breathing tube and discontinuation of mechanical ventilation. It is one of the most emotionally charged moments in all of medicine. However, the primary goal is to alleviate suffering, optimize comfort, and allow underlying terminal diseases to follow their natural course. So before the tube comes out, doctors routinely administer opioids, which typically fentanyl, and sometimes sedatives to prevent the patient from experiencing pain or the terrifying sensation of air hunger, which is the feeling of suffocating. It is also done to spare the families the anguish of watching

Comfort Care Versus Lethal Dosing

SPEAKER_01 17:04

their loved one gasp and struggle after the tube is removed. So this is standard, accepted, compassionate medicine. Every ICU in America does it. The question is, how much? Mount Carmel's own clinical guidelines in 2016 recommended 50 to 100 micrograms of fentanyl for pain relief during palliative excavation. And by 2018, the guidelines had actually been reduced to 25 to 50 micrograms. The DEA considers 2,000 micrograms of fentanyl, or 2 milligrams, a potentially lethal dose for someone who has not developed opioid tolerance. Fentanyl is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine. Beginning in 2015, William Hussell started ordering fentanyl doses that bore no resemblance to those guidelines. He would order 500 micrograms, 800, 1,000, 2,000 micrograms. These doses were 5 to 25 times the standard dose and often administered as a single bolus, which is just one massive push of the med, just before or during the removal of a breathing tube. And he didn't stop it at fentanyl. He frequently combined it with other powerful drugs like dilatid and midazolam. In the case of one 39-year-old patient, Ryan Hayes, Husel ordered 2,000 micrograms of fentanyl plus 10 milligrams of dilaudid plus 2 milligrams of midazolam all at once. So again, 2,000 micrograms is 25 times the normal dose. And then combined with those other two drugs that suppress breathing, I mean, come on. All given to a man who's 39 years old. A prosecutor would later call these doses astounding and mind-boggling. And another said they were enough to kill an elephant. I know. So how does a doctor order doses this far out of the normal range without anyone stepping in to stop him? And the answer lies, of course, as it most typically does, in the systematic failures that Heusell exploited or simply operated within. So there were two, and the first was a verbal order. Standard hospital protocol requires physicians to enter medication orders into the electronic health record where they are reviewed by a pharmacist before the medication is dispensed. This is the safety net. It's designed to catch errors and to catch exactly what HUSIL was doing. But HUSIL routinely gave verbal orders directly at the bedside to the nurse. So no electronic record, no pharmacist review, just a doctor saying a number and the nurse writing it down. So the second was the Pixis machine. And we've talked about this before, but a Pixis is an automated drug dispensing cabinet that you can find in every hospital. And the Pixis system has an override function that's designed for genuine emergencies when a patient needs medication immediately and there isn't time to wait for pharmacist approval. So Heusel and the nurses on duty use this override routinely, but not for emergencies. It was for every palliative excavation dose. The override bypassed every layer of pharmaceutical oversight, and here is the detail that makes the pattern undeniable. Mount Carmel's own internal investigation would later find that William Heusell was the only physician in the entire system ordering fentanyl doses of 500 micrograms or more. Not one of a few, not an outlier among peers. He was the only one for five years. And every single one of those patients in the criminal case died within 30 minutes of the fentanyl orders being administered. So numbers are easy to talk about, right? There were 35 patients, 28 potentially lethal doses, 14 murder charges. Our minds can absorb what a large-scale tragedy this was, but let's do what numbers cannot, which is our favorite thing, and let's talk about some of the people. James George Allen was 44 years old when he suffered a heart attack and was subsequently put on a ventilator at Mount Carmel West. His family firmly believed that he had stabilized. His son could squeeze his hand and feel his father squeeze back, so they held hope that he would come home. The fragile, fierce kind of hope that families cling to in the hospital waiting rooms, that he would return to his wife, to his life, and to his tomato garden.

Pyxis Overrides And Verbal Orders

SPEAKER_01 21:23

That night, the night shift began and Dr. Hussell appeared. He told the family that Alan was suffering from total organ failure and suggested comfort medication. He said Alan would go quickly once they withdrew the ventilator. Alan's daughter, Lisa Coleman, would later tell the New York Times we felt like we had no other option. They never mentioned anything about a lethal dose. James Allen died on May 28th, 2018, at only 44 years old. Troy Allison was also 44 years old. He was a diabetic who had never, according to his wife, Chris, had trouble breathing before. Night in the summer of 2018, he couldn't catch his breath. He asked Chris to call an ambulance. And if if Troy's anything like my husband, if you're asking for an ambulance, we gotta go. Yep. The paramedic said that his blood sugar was slightly elevated and took him to Mount Carmel West as a precaution. While in the emergency room, Troy had multiple cardiac events and subsequently moved to the ICU. Dr. Hussell told Chris that her husband was brain dead and that his organs were failing. He suggested medication to make Troy comfortable. Troy Allison then received 1,000 micrograms of fentanyl, and he was dead before his wife left the room. Months later, Chris received a phone call from the hospital telling her that her husband's death had gone or had been an overdose. She later told CNN, it just wasn't adding up. They said they were going to give him something to make him comfortable. Fine, give him something. He didn't say I'm going to give him a thousand micrograms of fentanyl and he'll be gone before you leave the room. That would have been a different conversation, she said. Troy Allison was one of at least five patients whose condition at the hospital hospital later acknowledged could have potentially improved with additional medical care and he might have gone home.

SPEAKER_04 23:12

What a tragedy.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Jan Thomas was 65 years old when she died at Mount Carmel West, which I'm just going to start calling MCW because I can, because it's our podcast, in March 2015. She received 800 micrograms of fentanyl, and her family was not told about the overdose until three years later. So three years of believing natural causes. And her case was among 11 charges that were eventually unfortunately dismissed before trial because prosecutor would decide that doses under a thousand micrograms would be harder to prove as intentional murder. Her son, Sean Thomas, reacted with raw anguish, saying, Every time this is covered, she dies again. Every time her name flashes in the story, she dies all over again. To hear 11 of these cases dismissed, she is dying all over again.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Just feel his pain in that quote. I know.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Ryan Hayes, 39 years old. He was found unresponsive by his sister Lisa and was taken to MCW after suffering cardiac arrest, where he was stabilized. And then a few days later, he was suddenly dead. The record showed what killed him: 2,000 micrograms of fentanyl, 10 milligrams of Dilatid, and 2 milligrams of midazolam. A cocktail of respiratory depressants so powerful that his pretrial attorney Terry Hummel said it simply, he got substantially more than what should ever be given. 2,000 micrograms, that is the maximum dose the DEA considers potentially lethal for someone with no opioid tolerance. And Husel gave it to a 39-year-old man and added, well, why not two more drugs on top of it? Donald McClung was 58. His condition had deteriorated at MCW and he died on September 18th, 2018. His family received the single largest individual settlement in the case of $4,650,000. Hewsell was not criminally charged in McClung's death because his doses fell below the 500 microgram threshold that the prosecutors use, and that we'll touch on later, but the civil system delivered its own verdict leading to the large settlement. Joanna Belisari was 69. She had COPD, chronic kidney disease, and suffered septic shock, and she also had suspected lung malignancies. But at the trial, prosecution expert Dr. E. Wesley Ely of Vanderbilt University, one of the most respected voices in critical care medicine, testified that Belisari's quote, care was certainly not at the point where I would describe her as imminently terminal or further options futile, end quote. He said he would have continued to support her to see if her condition could improve. She received a thousand micrograms of fentanyl and did not get that chance to see if her condition would improve. Rebecca Walls was 75 when she died on November 19th, 2018, and her death would prove to be the tipping point. It was her case that prompted MCW to broaden its internal investigation from a preliminary inquiry into a full-scale review. Her family would eventually receive a $4,350,000 settlement, but no amount of money answers the questions her family has carried ever since. Was her death necessary? MCW's own internal investigation found that at least five of the 35 patients had not yet exhausted life-saving measures at the time of extivation. That means that they were not necessarily dying, and some may have realistic chances of recovery. They were sick, yes. They were in the ICU, yes, but they were not beyond help. And yet, one by one, they received doses of fentanyl that no other physician in the entire hospital system was ordering. And one by one they died within minutes. And one by one their deaths were recorded as natural until someone finally spoke up.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

But before we get more into that, it's time for a child.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

For decades, diseases like Parkinson's and heart failure have shared a frustrating reality. Medicine could slow their progression and manage symptoms, but it couldn't repair the damage causing the disease. And now Japan is taking a major step towards changing that. Japan has become the first country to approve a stem cell-based treatment for both Parkinson's

Families Caught In The Numbers

SPEAKER_01 27:49

disease and severe heart failure. These therapies received what's known as conditional approval, meaning they can be used in patients while researchers continue collecting data on their long-term safety and effectiveness. The Parkinson's treatment uses induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPSCs, which are adult cells that are reprogrammed into a stem cell-like state and then transformed into a dopamine-producing neuron. Those new neurons are transplanted into the brain with the goal of replacing the cells lost to Parkinson's disease and restoring dopamine production, potentially addressing the underlying cause of the condition, rather than simply treating its symptoms. For patients with severe heart failure, the second therapy uses sheets of lab-grown heart muscle cells that are placed directly onto the heart. Researchers hope these cells will help repair damaged tissue, encourage the growth of new blood vessels, and improve the heart's ability to pump blood. And while the silence is incredibly promising, these approvals come with an important caveat. Both treatments were approved after relatively small clinical trials, and many questions remain about how well they will work over the long term. Japan's regulatory system allows promising regenerative therapies to read or to reach patients sooner than many other countries, but the treatments will continue to be closely monitored as additional data is collected. Whether these therapies ultimately fulfill their promise remains to be seen, but they represent a significant milestone in regenerative medicine. Rather than simply slowing disease progression, researchers are now exploring the possibility of replacing damaged cells and restoring function, an approach that could one day transform the treatment of many degenerative diseases. Exciting. Woo-hoo! Okay, back to the story. A pharmacist working the night shift at MCW filed a formal internal report in October 2018. The details were straightforward, stating that a physician in the ICU is ordering fentanyl doses that are wildly outside of the normal range, and that no pharmacical sense for comfort care. Doses that, in the pharmacist's professional judgment, are dangerous. This was not the first time the pharmacist had noticed. Talen Schreuer, one of the hospital pharmacists, would later testify about an earlier encounter with Heusell. Quote, I asked something to the effect of, hey doc, I got this order for fentanyl here. Did you

Pharmacists Sound Alarm Too Late

SPEAKER_01 30:20

add an extra zero or something? And he said, Nope, we're doing a procedure up here. That's what I ordered. So I said, okay, and I hung up and verified the order, end quote. Another pharmacist, Gregory Dressbach, testified he thought it was a clerical error the first time he saw a thousand microgram fentanyl order from Housel. Even beyond that, Dressbach said, I was concerned about the fact that people were overriding at one time such high doses. And then on top of it, one person was removing them and another person was apparently giving them. When he questioned an order, he received no explanation, but the drug was given anyway after he rejected it. The nurses simply overrode the Pixis machine. So the pharmacist report on October 25th should have been a five alarm fire, but it wasn't. The report received was not investigated seriously, and because of that, more patients died. Between October 25th, when that five alarm fire was raised, and November 21st, when Heusil was finally removed from patient care, though there were three additional patients that died because of receiving Housil's fentanyl orders. Those three people might be alive today if the hospital had acted on the report with the urgency it demanded. On October 19th, the death of Rebecca Walls and the abnormally high dose in her case triggered a second formal report. The following day, patient Melissa Pennox died, and her case reportedly prompted the hospital's full investigation. So finally, days after the reports, the hospital removed William Heusell from patient care, and this whole time frame is 27 days. So 27 days, three more people died. And that delay would later become one of the most damning facts in the entire case, not against Husel, but against the hospital.

SPEAKER_04 32:06

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

So late November, Husel received an email from the vice president of medical affairs, and it read Quote, I need to inform you that some questions have arisen regarding dosing of medications on several patients recently. Frankly, the concerns are serious. End quote. Five days later, he met with hospital administrators who accused him of giving excessive fentanyl doses. I was kind of blind-sided by the accusations, he said. He told them he had given, quote, comfort care to give them a pain-free death, end quote. He says administrators reassured him and told him he wasn't going to lose his job and that everything was going to be okay. On December 5th, William Heusell was fired and the hospital simultaneously notified the State Medical Board of Ohio. They also met with Franklin County prosecutor Ron O'Brien, and within days, the hospital also notified the Ohio Boards of Pharmacy and Nursing about what was going on. And at least 20 nurses and pharmacists were quietly placed on administrative leave. Oh, wow. So for six weeks, the public knew nothing. The families of the dead knew nothing. And the silence held until January 14th, 2019, when the family of Janet Kavanaugh, the 75 or 79-year-old woman who had died in Houston's care in December of 2017, filed the first wrongful death lawsuit. That same day, MCW's CEO Ed Lamb released a video statement acknowledging the firings and that patients had received, quote, significantly excessive and potentially fatal doses, end quote, of the fentanyl. The damn head broken. Oh, wow. So then in January, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services informed MCW and its sister hospital, Mount Carmel St. Anne's, that they were in immediate jeopardy of losing federal funding. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost publicly called for Houston's medical license to be suspended immediately. And the next day, the Ohio Medical Board obliged. Ohio State Police then formally entered the investigation and the case became a criminal matter. But that brings us to June, when the Franklin County prosecutor Ron O'Brien stood before the cameras and announced that William Hewsell had been charged with 25 counts of murder. He surrendered to the Columbus police just before the announcement and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. And then he posted the 1 million bail two days later. O'Brien described it as one of the largest murder cases ever brought against a healthcare professional in American history. And in a city still reeling from the scope of the allegations, a single question hung over everything. How did this happen for five years without anyone stopping it? Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, yeah, five years is a bit of time. Yeah. The fallout hit Mount Carmel like a wrecking ball, and it came from every direction at once. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services placed Mount Carmel officially in the immediate jeopardy, the most severe federal designation a hospital can receive. So that means it meant that the hospital was at risk of losing access to Medicare and Medicaid funding, which is the financial lifeline that keeps most hospitals in America debt-free. The Ohio Department of Health issued its own finding that Mount Carmel had failed to prevent patients from receiving an overdose. Mount Carmel submitted a corrective action plan that read like an indictment of its own failures. Verbal drug orders would be restricted. Pixis

Fallout Settlements And Hospital Closure

SPEAKER_01 35:48

overrides for opioids would be prohibited except in genuinely life-threatening emergencies. High-risk medication overrides would be reviewed daily. The measures that should have been in place all along were implemented only after the 35 patients were dead. And so now we're in March of 2020, and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy fined MCW $477,000. The board found that the hospital had failed to investigate any medication overrides by the nurses, and that this failure contributed to the death of the patients. All this led to a leadership exodus. The CEO Ed Lamb resigned that July, and Chief Clinical Officer Richard Struck retired. Chief Pharmacy Officer Janet Whitdy was gone by the following February, and 23 nurses, pharmacists, and managers were all fired, including five members of physician, nursing, and pharmacy leadership. All clinical leadership at Mount Carmel West was placed on administrative leave, and the hospital was institutionally gutted. MCW reported 48 nurses and pharmacists to their respective state licensing boards. The Ohio Board of Nursing issued citations to 25 nurses. Two of them had their license suspended. Hearing examiner Jack Decker, reviewing the cases, wrote something that cut to the heart of the systematic failure. The night shift at MCW was in many ways a dysfunctional workplace. Dr. Husel evidently had little effective supervision. Pharmacy review was ineffectual, and hospital policies were routinely ignored as next to irrelevant. Not one nurse, pharmacist, or hospital administrator was criminally charged. The only person who faced a jury was the doctor. There were nine nurses and one pharmacist that were fired by MCW that struck back. They filed a 145-page lawsuit against the hospital. That's quite large. Large. Yeah. So against the hospital, against the former CEO, Ed Lamb, and Trinity Health Corporation. Their argument was actually pretty strong. So they had been fired for following a physician's prescriptions. Prescriptions they said did not violate the hospital policies at the time, which is correct. They alleged that the hospital had changed its medication dosage policies after the fact to create a false narrative of rogue behavior. They called the hospital's public story absurd yet attention grabbing, a false narrative of a malevolent rogue doctor and his compliant team. A narrative that ultimately ruined the lives and careers of numerous devoted nurses and pharmacists. Some nurses reported being confronted in public, and others said mental health providers refused to see them, which I'm like, that's kind of wild, but what?

SPEAKER_04 38:41

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

I'm like, really? Uh I don't know. Their careers were destroyed, and they argued that the real villain wasn't the doctor or nurse, it was the hospital system that failed at every level of oversight, and then blamed the people that are at bedside. The civil lawsuits began piling up almost immediately. There were 32 wrongful death suits in total, and Mount Carmel and Trinity Health settled them by writing check after check after check. And by April 2023, the total of all these checks exceeded $40 million.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Okay, can I just say that's what Taylor Swift's wedding cost this last year?

SPEAKER_01 39:20

40 million?

SPEAKER_04 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Why don't I know that?

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Wow. Anyway, carry on.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Anyway, well, for a hospital, 40 million is a lot. That's not really a lot to Taylor Swift, but it was a lot to the hospital, and they ultimately had to close their doors. The working class Catholic hospital that was founded way back in 1886 and served the community for over a century was shuttered. That's so sad. I know it's patients transferred in their halls emptied. The hospital failed to stop one doctor, and ultimately that was their demise. The trial was delayed by COVID-19, by legal maneuvering, and by the sheer complexity of the case. It was originally set for 2020 and didn't begin until February of 2022. Before the trial began, 11 of the original 25 murder charges were dismissed. Prosecutors narrowed the case to 14 counts and those involving the highest doses, the most egregious cases, the ones they believed they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Over seven weeks, the prosecution called 53 witnesses, which included pharmacists, nurses, family members, and medical experts. Their theory was straightforward. Hewsell was not providing comfort care. He was committing euthanasia. He knew exactly what those

Murder Trial And Not Guilty Verdict

SPEAKER_01 40:39

doses would do. He had trained in anesthesiology at the Cleveland Clinic. He understood the pharmacology of fentanyl better than almost anyone in the hospital. And he used that knowledge to end lives. Assistant prosecutor David Zayan drove the point home in closing arguments, saying with his training in anesthesiology, he knew what those drugs would do. This isn't negligence. This is on purpose. Euthanizing animals with the intent to kill is fine in veterinary medicine. It's not fine in the ICU at Mount Carmel or anywhere. End quote. The prosecution argued that Husel's prestigious background was itself a weapon, that the nurses were enthralled by his Cleveland clinic credentials and were therefore unlikely to question his orders. They painted a picture of a physician who operated without checks, who gave verbal orders to avoid electronic records, who used the Pixis override to sidestep pharmacist review, and who ordered doses so far outside of the norm that no reasonable interpretation of comfort care could explain them. Their star expert witness was Dr. E. Wesley Ely of Vanderbilt, as we mentioned before. He testified that Husel's dosing was astounding, mind-boggling, and agreed it was out of the norm. He reviewed individual patient cases and testified that at least one patient, Joanna Belisari, was not imminently terminal and had treatment options remaining. The defense was led by Jose Baez, an attorney who was famously, who had famously secured the Casey Anthony acquittal. He brought star power, media savvy, and a simple, powerful narrative that William Hussell was a compassionate doctor who provided aggressive comfort care to dying patients. Every single one of the patients was terminally ill and all of them expected to die. The families had consented to withdraw care, and Husse's doses were high. Yes, he did acknowledge that, but they were calibrated to ensure that his patients didn't suffer. The defense called exactly one witness. Just one. And that was Dr. Joel Zivitt, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at Emory University. Zivitt testified that all 14 patients died from illness and underlying medical conditions rather than fentanyl that Heusell had ordered. The doses, Zivitt argued, didn't kill them. Their diseases did. Bayes's closing arguments went to the absence of motive, saying, Common sense says Dr. Hussell had no motive to harm patients. He dedicated his life to taking care of patients and saving lives, not taking them. Why would this man risk his family, career, and 17 years of trying to be a doctor to hasten someone's death or kill them? Trying to be a doctor?

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Mm-hmm. The jury deliberated for five days before they returned their verdict, and on all the counts, they found Husil not guilty.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

What? The courtroom eropted.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Hussa's wife, Mariah, was overcome, sharing, quote, My cousin had to tell me to calm down because my cries were so loud, end quote. Defense co counsel Diane. Minashi said she had told Husel the night before to be with your family tonight. He has an amazing, supportive, and huge family. Just have some joy. I don't think he's allowed himself any joy for three years, she said. After the verdict, she went on to say, Tonight he can go home, and tomorrow he wakes up and there's no goodbye. It's an incredible thing. And Bays tweeted just one word, Justice, with many explanation points.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Can I just say this is so gross? Because the patients that died because he overdosed them that may have had a chance of survival don't get any joy. They don't get any chance to go home.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

They don't get any tomorrow. They don't get any wake up. They don't get a goodbye. Gross. So no jury speaks publicly after a verdict, and this jury was no exception, but legal analysis pointed to several factors. First, the burden of proof. Murder requires proving intent to kill beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the highest standard in law. The prosecution had to prove not just that the doses were excessive, but that Husell specifically intended to end lives rather than to relieve suffering. In a medical setting, with dying patients, with families who had agreed to withdraw care, that line was extraordinarily difficult to draw. Second was the institutional failure. As plaintiff's attorney Jerry Leesberg, who presents represented 17 of the victims' families, later said it was always going to be extremely hard to convince a jury to convict a physician of murder in a case where the physician's acts occurred openly over four years in a hospital setting where no one did anything to stop him. If what Husseil was doing was so obviously criminal, why did dozens of nurses administer the drugs? Why did pharmacists verify the orders? And why did the hospital do nothing for five years? The jury may not have believed Hussell was innocent. They may simply have believed the prosecution didn't prove that he was guilty. In May of 2022, two weeks after his acquittal, William Husel's medical license was officially revoked by the State Medical Board of Ohio by voluntary surrender. He would never practice medicine again. Acquittal in criminal court does not mean exoneration in life, however. Heusell gave his first public interview in 2023, and the picture he painted was bleak. He was unemployed, living on food stamps and Medicaid. He had been diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression, with neurological symptoms so debilitating, he said he had to concentrate on basic voluntary movements like walking. His three young children knew nothing of what their father had been through. Yeah, he said. When asked if everything had been taken from him, financially, mentally, emotionally, physically, they'll still make comments that I'm a serial killer, he said. A killer doctor. He maintained his innocence absolutely, saying, Every day when I come to work, I wanted to do good things, he said. When he asked if he killed any of his patients, he replied, never. And when he asked if he was innocent, he answered, yes. So Hewsell did not go quietly. In April of 23, he filed a $20 million malicious prosecution lawsuit against Trinity Health Corporation, alleging the hospital had fabricated and amplified the case against him to deflect its own failures. He claimed Trinity had weaponized the investigation to support a restrictive religious approach to end-of-life care, a reference to the Catholic doctrine underlying Trinity's health care philosophy. In March of 2024, a federal judge dismissed the suit without prejudice. In June 25, so recently, Husel's defamation case against Trinity Health was dismissed by direct verdict. The judge ended it before it even reached a jury. Court documents from the defamation proceedings revealed an internal PR strategy document in which Trinity Health had characterized Hewsell as a villain, but the court ruled this was insufficient to support a defamation claim. The legal system, having acquitted him of murder, declined to award him damages for the consequences of being accused of it. The Hewsell case sits at the intersection of some of the most difficult questions in modern medicine. We asked a similar question when discussing my last case about Dr. John Bodkin Adams, and similarly when Jenna covered Harold Shipman. Where is the line between comfort care and euthanasia? And who gets to set to decide when a patient's life is no longer worth sustaining? What happens when the safeguards designed to prevent harm, electronic records, pharmacist review, medication limits, physician supervision are systematically bypassed? The doctrine of double effect, a cornerstone of Catholic medical ethics, deeply relevant

The Line Between Comfort And Euthanasia

SPEAKER_01 48:58

given Trinity's health Catholic ownership, holds that it is ethically permissible to administer medication that may hasten death if the primary intent is alleviate alleviating pain and suffering. But Hewsell's doses were five to twenty times above the normal range. As Medscape noted, the case exposed the largely hidden debate over whether it's accessible to hasten the death of dying patients who haven't chosen that path. That's called euthanasia, which is illegal in the United States. Dr. Lewis Nelson, Chair of Emergency Medicine at Rutgers, offered perhaps the best assessment, saying, maybe this is a wake-up call that people believe this is the right thing to do. The medical community has a sense that we often prolong life unnecessarily, but a physician cannot unilaterally decide if it's time for someone to die. It sounds like he took that decision into his own hands. And Michael Cohen, founder of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, delivered the system systemic verdict, saying this is an extreme example that everyone should learn about and learn from about what not to do. Hussa was given massive overdoses of drugs. People knew it was problematic, and someone didn't put their foot down. You've got to have a process in place to address these situations where there is disagreement over the safety of a medication order. The case also unfolded alongside a striking parallel. In 2022, almost simultaneously with Husel's acquittal, Nashville nurse Redonda Vott was convicted of negligent homicide for accidentally giving a patient a wrong medication. The contrast was searing and widely discussed in the medical community. Vott accidentally killed one patient and went to prison. Husel allegedly intentionally killed many patients and walked free. The disparity spoke volumes about how the legal system treats physicians versus nurses, intent versus accident, and the weight of institutional context.

SPEAKER_04 50:56

Oh wow. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

In the end, the Hussell case leaves us with a question that no verdict, no settlement, and no regulatory action has resolved. Were those patients going to die anyway? And did William Hussel simply ensure they died without suffering? Or did he take it upon himself to decide when their lives would end, dosing them with quantities of fentanyl that no other physician in the system was ordering and bypassing every safeguard to do it? A jury of his peers said the prosecution didn't prove murder. Mount Carmel's own investigation said at least five patients hadn't exhausted their options. Over $40 million in settlements said the hospital bore responsibility. And William Hewsell, stripped of his license, living on food stamps, haunted by PTSD, said that he was just trying to give dying patients a pain-free death. Thirty-five families lost someone they loved inside the ICU at Mount Carmel West. They trusted the hospital and the doctor, and they will never know, not truly and not with certainty, whether their loved ones died because their bodies gave out or because someone in a white coat pushed a syringe and decided it was time. Mount Carmel West is closed now. The building still stands in Franklin, but the patients are gone, the ICU is dark, and the Pixis machines that dispensed all that fentanyl have been powered down. The nurses who worked the night shift have scattered, some to other hospitals, some out of medicine entirely, some still carrying the weight of what they participated in, willingly or not. William Hewsell is somewhere in Ohio raising his children, trying to rebuild something from the wreckage of a life that was either taken from him unjustly or brought down by his own hands. And the families of those 35 patients are somewhere too, in houses where an empty chair at the dinner table tells a story that no podcast, no trial, and no settlement check can ever fully tell. This case doesn't have a clean ending, and there's no moment where the truth snaps into focus and everyone agrees on what happens. It's not black and white, which we've said it before and we say it all the time. It's often not when discussing medical crimes. And honestly, it's tough. There's no it's like not just the evidence, the testimony, the doses, the deaths, and the silence that fills the spaces between them. What we know is this for five years, a doctor ordered doses of fentanyl that no one else in the hospital ordered. 35 patients died, an entire hospital's oversight system failed, and a jury said the state couldn't prove it was murder. What we believe is something each of us will have to decide for ourselves. So what do you think?

SPEAKER_04 53:36

Oh wow, this is heavy. Well, what do I think? I think he was playing God. Whether he thought he was doing it for for good or for evil, he decided that he was the expert on whether someone should live or die. And out of, I don't know, 35 people, or I forget how many. I know he was only can like taken to court about what 14 of them, but there were yeah, 35 total. Yeah. Out of those 35 people, the hospital said, you know, five of them at least, at very least, had a chance of survival. And

Our Take On System Failure

SPEAKER_04 54:16

I think the Hippocratic Oath is where we need to go because they vow to support life, right? Yeah. So this isn't about, well, I think you're gonna die, I'm gonna make you more comfortable. This is that whole euthanasia argument. You can't decide whether you believe in euthanasia or not. You have a set of rules to follow as a physician because you have this ultimate authority. Everyone is looking to you to uphold the Hippocratic oath and the regulations, right? So if you are saying, well, they're gonna die anyway, I just want to make it a quick and easy passing. Who are you to say that if that is not something that's legally available? And what makes me really mad is that obviously he's somebody who's super charismatic. He sounds like a narcissist, so he's got these grandiose ideas of perhaps being the savior and saving these people of the whole passing, you know, any pain or whatever, which sounds wonderful, but if you have a chance at life, urging you on to death isn't necessarily noble, right? But you've ingratiated yourself to your nursing staff. Well, they're gonna be loyal as hell. How can we blame those nurses for overriding doses when an override, first of all, is allowed, and second of all, the doctor told you to, and this is a doctor that you respect and you have a good relationship with. So I'm upset that these nurses were held accountable for this because it was a systemic failure.

SPEAKER_01 55:56

And the pharmacist too. Like so the review didn't go to them.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

The pharmacist wasn't even involved, right? Because they were bypassed. So that the pharmacist should never be held accountable for that unless they were told. You know, you gave an example of where a pharmacist was told, and they said, Are you sure you didn't add another zero? And the physician said, No. Well, you know what? In a culture of safety where you are never held accountable, like there aren't any retaliation for standing up or where it's safe to stand up and challenge a so-called authority, which is a physician over a pharmacist, uh, maybe that person would have stood up. So it's more of a systemic issue than it is that pharmacist. Although, yeah, I feel like the pharmacist maybe had a little bit more accountability than a nurse who is always following just direct orders. A pharmacist, their area of expertise is medication. So, you know, they should have stood up and said, you know what, this is 25 times the normal dose. But again, if a culture is you are penalized or not respected or punished in some way for standing up to a god forbid, a physician, then that's culture of lack of safety is to blame. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

And and so for the pharmacists, like, okay, maybe this goes on for maybe five months, not five years.

unknown 57:31

True.

SPEAKER_03 57:31

It gets harder than that.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

But they weren't ultimately the ones to say something, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:38

No, that's true. Why did it take five years? Five years. So that is an that is a system where it isn't safe to stand up to a physician at full stop. Yeah. And I think if the other physicians knew that this one was doing this, perhaps something would have happened sooner and they would have held their peer accountable. But when you're in a hierarchy situation like that, it's not safe for other people that are not necessarily on the peer level to be paid attention to. So I think that's part of the problem. Yeah. Yeah. I do feel compassion for the whole, you know, let's ease their suffering from taking the the intubation tube out and all of this, like extubating a patient. But there are the there's a reason that there are protocols for these things, you know?

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah. And not going 25 times. Yeah. This was too extreme. And adding Dilatid and Medazlam on top of it.

SPEAKER_04 58:39

What the hell was that all about?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Oh, he was just playing. That's what makes me feel like he knew what he was doing.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

Yeah. He just wanted to be powerful and play God. And maybe the part of it he believed he was like the angel of death or whatever, but it's not your job. You weren't given that. That's God's job. So step aside and follow the rules and follow the protocols.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

They're there for a reason.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Exactly. What makes you so special?

SPEAKER_01 59:06

By those protocols, people are gasping and it's horrible and horrific for the family. Then let's revisit the protocols. But yeah, 25 times plus additional medications, unnecessary.

SPEAKER_04 59:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

And that's where for me it's like, I feel like you knew what you were doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:23

And he had plenty of opportunity to reverse course. Like, yeah. It wasn't the first time he was challenged, like, wow, that's a lot. Okay, maybe next time I, you know, no.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

And he's like, Yeah, no, that's what I meant to do. I'm doing a procedure. Well, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 59:37

You're not doing a procedure, you're urging someone's passing. And who are you to decide that they're about to pass? Like, it that's the hard part, is you you can't tell. And there have been surprise turnarounds. So these people who may have had a chance at life weren't given one. And I don't know if it makes a difference if someone is DNR. I don't know. We didn't even talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:03

I suppose I suppose DNR would not have been part of this category because they would not have been intubated.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

So oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They wouldn't have been on a bit in first place. Yeah. Oh, God. Well those are. Well, for us to not think about that right away means that we probably should have had more coffee today.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:21

Yeah, thank. Nice segue.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

I'm usually chasing my coffee cup around the house and I usually don't finish it. I find it, microwave it, find it, microwave it, and uh yeah. So if you're anything like us, mornings and or your whole day can be a little chaotic. And that's why Jenna and I love strong coffee company. They take everything that you want from your morning coffee and pack it into an instant blend that is good for you. Their black fair trade instant coffee. Delicious! Oh so good. And it also has 15 grams of protein, five grams of MCTs, and 250 milligrams of adaptogens, including ashwagonda and theanine. And the result, you guys, steady energy, improved focus,

Coffee Sponsor And MRI Patch Scare

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

and none of that shaky, over-caffeinated friggin' shakes that you can get from regular coffee when you also didn't have time to eat. If you prefer something a little creamier, they also have a latte blend that combines the organic Arabica coffee with protein, collagen, hyaluronic acid, and healthy fats to help support your body and brain throughout the day. Strong Coffee Company is all about high-quality ingredients, convenience, and creating products that fit into busy lifestyles without sacrificing flavor. If you're looking for a smarter way to fuel your day, this might be your new favorite coffee. Head over to strongcoffeecompany.com and use our code stay suspicious for 20% off your order.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

Is it time for a medical mishap?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:00

Sorry, I went really quick. You did. You went and there was a little stank to it too. Kind of like that. It's very Ally Cat. So the subject line of this email is the patch I forgot I was wearing. Hoobooy. It starts. Hi, Amanda and Jenna. First of all, I have to say how much I love your podcast. I found you guys during a long commute and immediately got hooked. I love true crime. I love medicine. And somehow you managed to combine two things that make me say, just one more episode until suddenly it's midnight. Aw, thank you. I never thought I would have a medical mishap story worth sharing because honestly, I'm usually the person who follows instructions to the letter, which is why this story still makes me laugh because the thing that caused the problem was something so small that I didn't even realize I was doing it. So here goes. A few years ago, I had to get an MRI for a shoulder injury. It wasn't anything urgent. I had just been dealing with pain that wasn't improving, and my doctor wanted a better look at what was going on. I'd never had an MRI before, so I did everything they told me to. I filled out the paperwork, answered the safety questions, removed my jewelry, emptied my pockets, took off my watch, and put everything into the locker. The MRI tech went through the checklist with me, and I remember thinking, wow, they're very thorough. At the time, I thought some of the questions seemed repetitive, but once you see that giant MRI machine, you understand why they take safety so seriously. And I mean, there's also Jenna's episode on the killer MRI machines. Oh MG, I'm glad I didn't listen to that first.

unknown 1:03:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:45

Yeah. So doozy. They positioned me on the table, gave me headphones, and flipped me into the scanner. The first few minutes were fine. It was loud and a little intimidating, but nothing I couldn't handle. Then I started feeling a strange sensation on my upper back. At first I ignored it, because if you've ever had an MRI, you know that when you're inside the machine, your brain starts questioning every little sensation. You wonder if something's normal, if you're overreacting, or if you should say something. But then the sensation became more noticeable. It was a warm, almost burning feeling. Not unbearable, but definitely something that felt wrong. It was similar to when you leave a heating pad on too long and your skin starts telling you, it's time to stop. The text voice came through the headphones that scared the bejesus out of me and said, You're you're doing great. We just have a few more minutes. I do a bit of heavy breathing first, like, and then I start. Then I'm like, okay, that's a little creepy. I just did some heavy breathing. But anyway, during the MRI, the writer says, Okay, I can make it. But the sensation continued to get stronger, and eventually I pressed the emergency call button. The table moved out of the scanner, and the tech immediately came over and asked where I was feeling discomfort. And I said, My upper back, pointing to the pain site. She looked confused for a moment and asked, Do you have anything on your skin? Any patches? And that's when my stomach dropped because yes, I did. I completely forgotten about it. It was a medication patch that I applied every day. It was such a normal part of my routine. My brain didn't even register it anymore. It was no different than brushing my teeth or putting on deodorant. I'd answered the MRI safety questions honestly, but somehow. That tiny detail completely slipped my mind. The tech carefully removed the patch, checked my skin, and thankfully there was no serious injury. But hey, a nice little reminder that in medicine, even the smallest detail can lead to a big problem if overlooked. After everything was checked, we restarted the MRI and the rest of the scan went smoothly. I was happy with how quickly the team responded when I pushed the button. No one panicked, no one blamed me for forgetting the patch. She simply said, This is why we ask every time. And that has stuck with me, and I like to share that because as patients, I think we sometimes assume those questions are repetitive and we think, oh my gee, I answered this last time or didn't you read my paperwork? They already know my history. Why are they asking me this? But those questions exist because healthcare is full of small details that can become very important in the right situation. And small details are easily overlooked when they're part of your regular routine. I think of the gal that wrote in about having the creamer in her coffee before blood work. Oops. But again, it's all about routine. Anywho, thank you both for creating such an entertaining and educational podcast. I love learning these behind-the-scene moments of healthcare and gaining a better understanding of why things are done the way they are. Stay curious and stay suspicious. Emily. Yeah, at least there hopefully there wasn't any metal in it. But yeah, it just goes to show there's a lot of stuff we take it for. I mean, you know, as audiologists, I wonder who goes in there with her hair.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

Yeah, well, I'm also thinking like even if you did remember your medication patch in your episode, didn't you say even some types of ink may have like properties in it that can feel like your skin is burning during it? So yeah. Tattoos. Yeah, tattoos. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:07

I've never had an MRI, but eek.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Thank you, Emily, for sending in your story.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:12

So we're not trying to scare people away from MRIs, but you're right. Like disclose, disclose, disclose. Because there are things they can do. They can wrap your tattoos. It doesn't mean you can't have an MRI. There are things they can just tell them everything. Yeah. There's nothing TMI in the medical world. Do a full body scan. Stand in front of the mirror naked.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:30

Do you have a tattoo? Yeah. Do you have a patch? What are your markings?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

Like it's like before you go. And if if anybody's ever donated plasma, and they're like so thorough. Like you have to write on this piece of paper, it's like a picture of a body, and like anywhere you have a tattoo or anything, you have to like draw it on this little body.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Yeah, I mean there's a reason for that. Any hoosies. Thank you, Emily. Well, next week we have an episode about a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota. Oh. Uh-huh. This is a hometown for Amanda and I. I will say one of the titles of one of the articles, just to give you a little insight, said I can't remember what it said exactly, but it says something like Geezer retires before criminal charges. Okay. Or a place. Well, now I know we're covering a man. So it's a man psychiatrist at University of Minnesota, and it's quite a career of criminality. So yeah, you're gonna want to stay

Next Week Tease And Listener Calls

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

tuned for that. I don't think we've covered a psychiatrist. Oh, I know. So just so everyone knows, we've just decided to go because remember, we did a lot of dentists. So I've done a spreadsheet to see kind of what the medical areas we've done. Yeah. Also just to make sure we're treating everyone equally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

Because you know what? I really need to get off the compassionate care argument here, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:59

There's nefariousness in all walks of healthcare. Yeah, we can add a psychiatrist to our inventory.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

So yeah, don't want anyone to feel left out. So until until then, guys, don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth wherever you enjoy your podcasts for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthe truth at buzzsprapp.com. Email us your own story ideas and comments at DoctoringTheTruth at Gmail. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and Facebook at DoctoringTheTruth. We're on TikTok at DoctoringTruth and at oddpod. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe and stay suspect.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:45

Suspicious.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:49

Goodbye.