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The city's Health Department is investigating three hepatitis C infection in people who "received intravenous (IV) anesthesia from the same NYC-based anesthesiologist." Oh, dear. The incidents occurred in August of last year, and it seems like the anesthesia was given in an out-patient (not a hospital) facility. The DOH is contacting about 4,500 patients who received IV anesthesia between December 1, 2003 and May 1, 2007 at the 10 outpatient facilities the doctor worked in to recommend they get tested.
The doctor has stopped working, and the NY State Department of Health says the doctor has not been suspended, because it's not clear he or she engaged in misconduct: "He or she has been a licensed physician since 1977 and does not have a history of spreading infection."
Hepatitis C is a liver infection, which doesn't have noticeable symptoms. There's more information here; the DOH says hepatitis C is not spread by casual contact such as hugging, sneezing, coughing, or sharing food and drinks.
Hepatitis C plush available for purchase at Nature's Odyssey
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How does an anesthesiologist give patients hep-C? Don't the docs use gloves & sterile utensils? Did he/she recycle the same needles over and over OR the does the doc have hep-C and deliberately gave it to patients?
My coworker just found out yesterday that he has to get tested due to an outbreak; I wonder if he was a patient of this doctor.
Re: how did the patients get Hep C - that's the puzzling part. The press release says that it's very rare for the disease to be transmitted, so you wonder if there was a breach in procedure.
That was a perfectly placed, "Oh dear."
Very rare? In can ONLY be transmitted through straight blood to blood contact.
This is a very puzzling piece of news and there's bound to be more to the story. During the normal administration of anesthesia in the outpatient setting, an anesthesiologist is starting an intravenous line and giving sedation via this line. He/She is also, less frequently, giving inhalation anesthesia, monitoring vital signs (pulse, blood pressure, oxygen level in the blood) and keeping a written record of the entire procedure.
Why would the DOH release this information if it is not clear there was any wrongdoing on the part of the doctor? Hepatitis C is, unfortunately, very common now. Would it be statistically unusual to have 3 infected individuals in a group of 150? Did those three individuals have testing done to see if they have the same serotype of virus? Does the fingerprint of that virus match that of the doctor? Sounds like a job for Berton Rouche (http://www.amazon.ca/Medical-Detectives-Berton-Rouche/dp/0452265886).
Anesthesiologists have the highest prevalence of any medical specialty of abuse of drugs (think of their access and the monotony of their jobs).
Anyway, the whole thing sounds mysterious to me and the announcement seems premature, unless the DOH knows something they're not telling us.
I got the letter from the DOH yesterday. Apparently I was one of the lucky patients of this doctor. The letter is super vague. I hope someone releases more information about how this could have happened. Aside from the "how the hell did it get transmitted" question, aren't all medical professionals supposed to be tested for hepatitis regularly?
Famdoc, I saw an interesting article about a year ago (maybe in the NY times) about anesthesiologists and drug use. The article was about a study concluding that anesthetic drugs can emanate from surgical patient's skin during surgery. Anesthesiologists, due to the amount of time they spend in close proximity to surgical patients are exposed to high concentrations of these drugs. As a result,some believe that in addition to having a boring job and access to drugs, anesthesiologists also can become physically addicted before even purposely taking the drugs illicitly. Thus they can experience physical withdrawal symptoms without knowing the cause - and the symptoms would be suddenly alleviated if they happened to "try" some of the drugs.
Yeah, I also got the letter, and already went in for the blood test.
My Dr had somebody from the DOH at their office on Friday to deal with the calls. I also find the information released so far vague, and certainly cannot tell the whole story. They must DEFINITELY know there's a connection here, or else why would they be frightening me and 4499 other people ? And HOW was the disease passed to the 3 who have it? And WHY did my doctor suggest I get Hep-A and Hep-B vaccinations, when I visited his office for the follow-up to the appointment that involved Doctor Disease. Just a coincidence? I hope so, but it's smelling fishy to me.
Hopefully the tests will come back fine. But if i have to deal with a disease FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE because of this quack, that's not gonna sit very well....
I posted the previous comment ("smelling fishy"). I am happy to say I tested Negative. I can go back to my life. I read that two more people have sued this docto, discovering their infection is connected to him. So, the list of infected grows.... Sad.