Why Doctors Need to Protect Themselves
For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on a column about violence against physicians. As I sorted through the details, my subconscious worry has been when the next fatal attack would be.
Unfortunately, it came on June 30, as reported in Medscape.[1] Tony Lee Cason, a patient at Timberlawn Mental Health System in Dallas, Texas, violently tackled and killed Ruth Anne MarDock, MD, possibly because he was upset at having heard he would be transferred to another facility.
Six years ago, I wrote about violence directed against doctors.[2] Since that time, I've worked to persuade national medical organizations to take on awareness and training for physicians, and I've provided instructional lectures on dealing with hostile patients to dozens and dozens of physicians. Since that time, there have been additional assaults and murders of physicians and other healthcare workers—including personal friends of mine, such as Dr Martha Post, a dermatologist, who in 2011 was shot by a man who prosecutors said was obsessed with her.
The increasing state and national attention paid to controlled substance prescribing is but one of many reasons cited for increases in healthcare violence over the past several years. The murder of Kentucky primary care physician Dr Denny Sandlin is a classic case study of such an assault over responsible controlled substance prescribing.
