Psychiatrist Killed with Meat Cleaver

[medicinesux]

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http://wcbstv.com/local/stabbing.upper.east.2.652693.html

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

 

[Faebinder]

http://wcbstv.com/local/stabbing.upper.east.2.652693.html

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

Err get your facts straight? It's a psychologist.... Psychiatrists are all muscles, baby. They would never be caught dead with a meat cleaver... Nothing less than a full mechanical chain saw to cut through their steel abs.

BTW... that's a horrible story. You can never be too careful in the mental health business.

 

[medicinesux]

Yeah, it turns out it was a psychologist...When the story first broke the victim was initially said to be a psychiatrist.

 

[whopper]

Reminds me of the time in outpatient when a patient decompensated and the staff, thinking that I had some powerful psychic powers could calm him down, so they told me to go into a room with him and didn't call the cops.

The inpatient staff never would have made that type of mistake. The guy didn't attack me but no one knew that for about 10 minutes. It was a PTSD decompensation where he was having severe anxiety, but for all we knew he could've attacked me.

I eventually was able to calm the guy down with some reassurance, the guy happened to have his meds on him. I told him to take some quietapine right then & there, and I had some staff open the samples locker & give the guy zyprexa zydis.

Remember this was outpatient--no IMs, & no benzos were on hand.

Then a few weeks later, the outpatient offices all announced that to get rid of the further problems of pharmaceutical conflicts of interest & because of JCAHO pressure all samples were going to be removed from outpatient.

IMHO all outpatient offices should have panic buttons & staff need to have some type of emergency routine planned out. Despite this I see very few offices with this setup. While I very strongly agree that we as doctors need to fight the commercial influence of meds, getting rid of samples, even if it was due to JCAHO was a big mistake. Aside that those samples actually helped some patients, it was the only thing I could use if someone decompensated in the outpatient office. If the staff called 9-1-1, cops wouldn't be there for about 10-15 minutes.

 

[Iquitos]

Yes, definitely a psychologist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4284604&page=1

It's still pretty crazy

 

[positivepsych]

The psychologist was killed, but the psychiatrist next door was also stabbed and robbed, and he's in critical care:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/13/therapist.killed.ap/

 

[Anasazi23]

Ain't this a kicker...I wonder if it would be unique to psychiatry.

New York lawmaker calls for action following therapist stabbing.
In continuing coverage from previous briefings, the New York Times (2/22, B1, Haberman) reports on the front page of its Metro section that since "last week's shocking murder of Kathryn Faughey, Ph.D., the psychologist who was stabbed repeatedly in her office on the Upper East Side," New York State Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) "demanded that [New York City] change its zoning regulations to prohibit therapists from treating violent patients in offices located in residential buildings." Should City Hall not do so, Sen. Adams said that "he will propose a state law to force its hand." According to Sen. Adams, "It is far too dangerous" to residents, "he said, to let these patients enter apartment buildings where, typically in New York, therapists have offices off the lobby." He said that such "patients should 'be referred to a clinical setting," for example, a hospital emergency department.

 

[MBK2003]

Ain't this a kicker...I wonder if it would be unique to psychiatry.

This is such an overreaction and only serves to contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness. I would have liked the reaction to this tragedy to some thoughtful implementation to improve collaboration of care across medical systems so that the evaluating psychiatrist in the ER can quickly and easily see that the patient had an evaluation in 2 other ERs in the past few weeks and be better able to make a decision about decompensation based upon quickly and easily obtained collateral info from other medical providers.

 

[PeeWee137]

of course it would only apply to psychiatry. people arent scared of the person with tb or bird flu seeing the dr in the apartment next to theirs, they are only scared of the crazy people 🙄

 

[toothless rufus]

This is such an overreaction and only serves to contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness. I would have liked the reaction to this tragedy to some thoughtful implementation to improve collaboration of care across medical systems so that the evaluating psychiatrist in the ER can quickly and easily see that the patient had an evaluation in 2 other ERs in the past few weeks and be better able to make a decision about decompensation based upon quickly and easily obtained collateral info from other medical providers.

Overreaction? I don't think so. Maybe a thankfully rare occurence; not for a lack of intent seen much too often. I worked in emergency psych fulltime for 5 years while in school, and violence was almost always right around the corner, whether its from genuinely psychotic patients, or angry "suicidal" malingeringers and meth addicts who escalate into a frenzy when they're told they can't go smoke or just want to leave. Even our outpatient clinic had its share of fun rather often. That place just sucked the life out of me eventually.

Its a high-risk field, and this "least restrictive" bs just makes the job harder. The goal should of course be deescalation and all that warm fuzziness, but when the sheet hits the fan, psych workers should be able to operate in a manner that is best going to save their arses. We had some real nasty violent sociopaths. You gotta be always vigilant. Ugh. Glad I never have to go back to that circus, although we did manage to actually help some truly sick and deserving people once in a great while. And I done seen some crazy shenanigans. But child psych is better: at least those little monsters are smaller. Usually.

 

[Faebinder]

Every veteran psychiatrist will tell you the same story.... DO NOT IGNORE YOUR INSTINCTS! Does he look ready to jump you? Fine, get backup... Why risk your life? Does a surgeon risk his life by putting a knife exposed on the table? Why should you take risks? The patient can sit and wait till the backup is ready.

 

[PeeWee137]

out of morbid curiosity - are there any stats on gender regarding pt attacks on their doctors? do male docs get attacked more than female docs? do male pt's attack their docs more than female pt's?

i ask because on my psych rotation, a pt began actively hallucinating and became extremely agitated. he tried to hide down the end of the hallway and when the staff (all men) went to "contain" him, he became violent. i came back from lunch in the middle of all this, and my attending suggested that me, a female ms3, go over and calm him down. i had a pretty good rapport with this guy even though he wasnt my pt, so i dont know if that had anything to do with it. there was even a couple of times the pt said i reminded him of his sister. or maybe they just thought he would respond better to a little girl. oddly enough i jumped at the chance to go talk to him and everything turned out fine, however stupid that may have been on my part. but i never felt in danger. maybe i have good instincts 👍

 

[Solideliquid]

out of morbid curiosity - are there any stats on gender regarding pt attacks on their doctors? do male docs get attacked more than female docs? do male pt's attack their docs more than female pt's?

i ask because on my psych rotation, a pt began actively hallucinating and became extremely agitated. he tried to hide down the end of the hallway and when the staff (all men) went to "contain" him, he became violent. i came back from lunch in the middle of all this, and my attending suggested that me, a female ms3, go over and calm him down. i had a pretty good rapport with this guy even though he wasnt my pt, so i dont know if that had anything to do with it. there was even a couple of times the pt said i reminded him of his sister. or maybe they just thought he would respond better to a little girl. oddly enough i jumped at the chance to go talk to him and everything turned out fine, however stupid that may have been on my part. but i never felt in danger. maybe i have good instincts 👍

Great attending 🙂