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Doc Accused of Stealing Ambulance; Telehealth Nurse Arrested; Heart Surgery Scandal

— A weekly roundup of healthcare's encounters with the courts

by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, ľֱ

MedpageToday
Legal Break over a blindfolded Lady Justice statue holding scales.

Oklahoma doctor Amy Darter, MD, was accused of from a hospital. Darter's medical license had been suspended 5 months earlier, after an investigation of patient complaints against her. (News 9)

A Florida nurse who worked for telehealth provider Done Health was arrested for to the tune of 1.5 million pills between 2021 and 2023. Prosecutors allege Erin Kim diagnosed patients with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- without an examination and sometimes without any communication at all -- so she could write the prescriptions and boost her own profits. (Click Orlando)

A Texas couple wrongly accused of child abuse is and the state's Department of Family and Protective Services. Their 5-month-old son was taken from them in 2015 after being improperly assessed as having shaken baby syndrome, when he actually had hydrocephalus. (ABC News)

Texas medical institutions will pay $15 million to resolve claims that they billed for concurrent heart surgeries, in violation of Medicare regulations, . A whistleblower alleged that three heart surgeons regularly ran two operating rooms at once, and delegated "key aspects of extremely complicated and risky heart surgeries to unqualified medical residents."

Michigan physician assistant Todd Martin Kreykes has been accused of to buy himself vehicles and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, remodel his home, and pay for vacations and personal expenses, federal prosecutors said.

Dharmesh Patel, MD, the California radiologist who drove his Tesla off a cliff with his family inside, . He was granted a mental health diversion. (USA Today)

Arkansas nurse Callie Weems was killed as she was of a mass shooting at a grocery store. (Reuters)

Lucy Letby, the British nurse convicted of killing seven babies, is on trial again for the attempted murder of another baby. She recently with the baby's breathing tube. (The Guardian)

Montana physician Ronald David Dean, DO, was convicted for his role in a during the COVID pandemic. (Daily Montanan)

Maine physician Merideth Norris, DO, was convicted of unlawfully distributing controlled substances, and could be sentenced to . (WMTW)

A South Carolina nurse was accused of at Prince George Healthcare Center. (WMBF)

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    Kristina Fiore leads MedPage’s enterprise & investigative reporting team. She’s been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com.