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Title: Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story Of A Doctor Who Got Away With Murder by James B. Stewart ISBN: 0-684-86563-7 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 15 June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.54 (89 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good book about a very sick and evil man.
Comment: The most important thing to keep in mind while reading this book is that its subject, Michael Swango, is a serial killer. He is an aberration. That being said, the idea of medical care professionals being killers is a nightmare that our medical system has to make even more impossible and rare.
Mr. Stewart shows how Swango was abetted by the system's clubby nature to protect its own against charges and suites, how he used the desperation of the more outlying medical facilities for doctors, and how psychopaths can charm and persuade those around them that the evidence to the contrary, their eyes are deceiving them.
This is a good read, but in some ways a very difficult one. It is interesting and compelling and yet it feels like being caught in a horrifying dream. Just as hard cases make bad law, these rare but horrible events make us want to do something, anything, in order to allow us to believe this could never happen again. But the reality is killers kill.
There are things the medical establishment could and should do in order to better weed out bad doctors, nurses, and others who staff our health care system. But to think in terms of a major restructuring in order to avoid something so extremely rare is as unrealistic as doing nothing.
The book ends with the possibility that Swango would be released a few months from the publication date. However, Swango has since pleaded guilty to four murders in order to avoid the death penalty and extradition to Zimbabwe. So, he is in prison for four consecutive life sentences. Thank heaven for that!
If this topic is interesting to you this is a very good book. But be prepared for reading about a very sick person and the horrible things he did to innocent and trusting people.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good prose; biased reporting
Comment: Blind Eye was an interesting read, but Stewart really draws the wrong conclusion from the data. His flawed conclusion, that the American medical establishment is inherently evil and is responsible for the monster Swango, is primarily due to Stewart's personal bias against physicians and powerful cliques in general. This bias manifests itself by the complete failure of the author to include the dozens of other residency programs that rejected Swango's matriculation, and attributing OSU et al's hiring of him as sinister. The simple fact is that Michael Swango is an evil person who is a master of deception, who having the ability to kill hundreds of people, was only able to ostensibly kill 20 or 30. To use one psychopath's misdeeds as an indictment of an entire industry composed of millions of people who deliver world renowned care is ludicrous. Why not blame Swango's crimes on elementary educators, the Marine Corp or the lawyers, police and judges who knew about this man? Instead Stewart goes for the easy (and most lucrative for book sales) target: the medical establishment. Michael Swango is not the natural constituency of the medical community; he is the antithesis of it. Stewart rightly points out the tendency of physicians to shy away from situations that seem prone to litigation (big surprize!), and the well known "circle the wagon" mentality in the medical profession, but wildly distorting the ontological connection between these and a madman like Swango is libelous. Stewart's sincere concern of the problems in our health care system could be handled much more honestly and effectively than by foisting his specious hyperbole on a stampede prone public. The story of Michael Swango is an importent one to tell, but the author should have reined in his personal bias prior to rendering his conclusions. (A note of interest: I spent an afternoon with Michael Swango in 1990 or !991 interviewing him for matriculation to our family practice residency program in Oklahoma. Though sorely in need of residents and his having a strong academic record, we rejected his application due to our concerns about his dubious past. Swango personally told me he was looking at several other programs at that time; it appears as those programs rejected him as well)
Rating: 5
Summary: Like watching a 20-year auto crash
Comment: My wife started reading this first (actually it was a book on CD). She didn't know it was real. When I told her it wasn't fiction she was visibly stunned. You cannot believe what the fraternity of the medical community will do to protect its own... while this whackjob calmly knocks of dozens of people. It is an incredibly well researched, well written account of The System gone nuts. You will be scared, frustrated and educated as to How Things Really Work in medicine, colleges, etc. And you will never look at a(n unfamiliar) doctor the same. A fabulous book... 10 stars.
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Title: The Surgeon's Wife by Kieran Crowley ISBN: 0312976410 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 17 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Dead and Buried: A Shocking Account of Rape, Torture, and Murder on the California Coast by Corey Mitchell ISBN: 0786015179 Publisher: Pinnacle Books Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: The Stranger In My Bed by Michael Fleeman ISBN: 0312984170 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 14 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Heart Full of Lies: A True Story of Desire and Death by Ann Rule ISBN: 0743202988 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Through the Window: The Terrifying True Story of Cross-Country Killer Tommy Lynn Sells by Diane Fanning ISBN: 0312985258 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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