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Brigham and Women's surgeon succumbs to gunshot injuries; was 44
By adamg on Tue, 01/20/2015 - 10:54pm
Boston Police report that Dr. Michael Davidson, a cardiac surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital from Wellesley, died tonight from being shot this morning.
Police say Stephen Pasceri, whose mother Davidson had operated on, shot Davidson twice at close range in the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center shortly after 11 a.m., then killed himself.
Davidson was rushed into surgery; doctors operated on him for several hours to try to stem the damage.
Davidson, also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, had been a surgeon at Brigham and Women's since 2006. He attended Yale Medical School and did residencies at Duke University Medical Center and at Brigham and Women's.
In 2003, a cardiologist at Mass. General was shot and killed by a woman who worked in his building - who then killed herself.
In 2013, a prisoner being treated at Mass. General grabbed a deputy's gun and shot him.
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Comments
Terrible thing
I can't help thinking about Dr Davidson's and Mr Pasceri's families -- a particularly awful loss for them.
Life
I am thinking of the lives that Dr. Davidson would have gone on to save, and the time taken by all the men and women to train him. I think of the lives this doctor made better already, exemplified by working in an excellent facility like Shapiro. So much life. So much time. The only solace I feel is when I am comforted by knowing that the shooter had the decency to take his own life. Now he will stop wasting life, and stop wasting time. In fact, for Davidson, I will never mention the shooter's name. Ever.
Lives saved
My dad had an emergency triple bypass in 2007... Davidson was his doctor. My dad says he loved the care he got from Davidson.
Murder suicide. What a tragedy.
Vengeance. Maybe mental illness.
The perp was upset his mother
The perp was upset his mother was financially ruined over hospital bills for her dead husband/his dad.
$8100 from UMass Memorial in Worcester
Let's just be clear, before anyone starts styling this guy as a vigilante for more equitable health care--what he did had nothing to do with justice of any kind. It was the worst kind of idiotic, misguided anger and frustration and it's resulted in the devastation of two families.
I'd also point out to all the folks who make "good kid" "trying to turn his life around" jokes every time some young black guy is killed in the city that these suburban white guys have their own set of predictable cliches--they were "such a nice family", quiet, friendly, a "great guy" etc.
So he shot a SURGEON? That
So he shot a SURGEON? That makes no sense.
Awful
And sad to lose someone who could have saved many more lives. An interesting article in Worcester Telegram about shooter. http://www.telegram.com/article/20150120/NEWS/301209556/1116
It truly was a terrible
It truly was a terrible tragedy and I hope this doesn't become a politicized issue with regards to the practices of surgeons or the safety of hospitals.
It seems like every tragedy
It seems like every tragedy is these days
sorting through the T&G article
Mr. Pasceri obtained a license to carry firearms in 2010, Millbury Police Chief confirmed.
Mr. Pasceri, in 2012, told Telegram & Gazette columnist Dianne Williamson that he was frustrated with an $8,100 bill that his mother received after his father died from a heart attack.
[Hey government, Medicare is overcharging] He sent copies of the bills to then- Sen. John F. Kerry and U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, he said, because he believed Medicare was being overcharged by hospitals.
His mother died in November. His mother said in 2012 that she was making payments to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.
Stephen Pasceri was aggrieved. He put all of this and what we don't know yet on the
cardiologist[cardiac surgeon], and thought assassination was the right course of action.He lost both parents and blamed doctors.
"Steve was a wonderful guy. He was so well-thought-of in this church ... No one can figure out what made him go this far. We can't figure it out."
Pedantic nit
The T&G article made the same mistake: Dr. Davidson was not a cardiologist. He was a cardiac surgeon. Those are two quite different specialties, even though they are related.
Thx
That's where I got my info. I'll note the correction.
The United States' stupid-assed stance on guns and
gun control has really come home to roost, in a big way, and in more than one way to boot. The United States, as a society and culture, is way too gun-dependent and too trigger-happy, and we're reaping the net results now. Not good...at all!
Blame the gun because its too
Blame the gun because its too hard to accept that a quiet veteran church going well respected accountant with a wonderful family could otherwise snap on another individual and then off themselves. The same thing still happens in the UK and they've even banned most police from being armed.
You can't despite the best of intentions legislate the failures of human nature into a perfect being. Nor expect words on paper to stop the actions of a sufficiently motivated and deranged individual. People can and always will go self destructively nuts for illogical reasons despite the best efforts of family, society, and medical science to prevent this.
Having received similar bills when parents died ...
I still don't get what is up with the super anger - it just doesn't add up. Yes, medical bills can be expensive in probate, but this doesn't seem like all that much in the scheme of things. If the parents owned property, then it is doubly baffling.
Makes me wonder if this guy has some serious gambling debts or other debts that he was hoping to clear, and the medical and nursing home bills cut into the estate.
Probate can be a very emotionally expensive process, and somebody always tries to exploit that and screw you over for more money than they are due. That said, there are better ways to fight back at the right people.
All the same, I feel bad for his family and especially for the doctor's family.
I don't know Steve or Dr.
I don't know Steve or Dr. Davidson. Just because Steve is a well-thought-of in this church doesn't make him good man.
He murdered a Doctor who dedicated to his life caring for sick people. He is Murderer, and doesn't deserve any sympathy anyone.
Just so awful.
I've done a lot of time in hospitals & doctors' offices recently. I've been humbled by the dedication of the medical practitioners and other staff. They put so much energy into helping patients to feel safe, protected and cared for, at a time when they can be so very vulnerable. For something like this to happen in such an environment.......it's just deeply upsetting. And such a loss to the medical community.
Feel safe protected cared for in doctor-patient relationships...
Medical Centers need to upgrade practices for improving doctor-patient relationships that doctors and patients feel safe, protected, cared for in an attentive way. There's a side of Brigham and Women's Hospital that officially takes the concerns of staff and patients and resolves concerns. However more emphasis can be given to institutional risk management out of balance with a more favorable, satisfying way of attending to doctors' and patients' concerns. The balance needs to be looked at again that doctors' and patients' concerns get attended to fully. In any medical center people can leave the examining rooms/doctors' offices wondering what happened that you get over to the doctors and the medical concern didn't get attended to with the best practices. Or doctors get patients that take too much time/energies . Or clinic management is too challenging. How can doctors' and patients' feelings of being safe, protected, cared for be improved particularly when not everything goes okay for either or both?
Yes
That is why this guy killed the surgeon.
Just take the rest of the day off, Don.
He leaves his wife and three children
The Swellesley Report posts a copy of a memo from the Wellesley school superintendent - Davidson's children attend an elementary school there.
Outcome of Operation?
Anything unusual about the operation on the gunman's mother by Davidson? Complaints on file by her? That would seem the place to look for a motive.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
When you have a hammer...
Every problem looks like a nail. And too many people have gun-shaped hammers these days. Stay what you will about how he could have stabbed the guy or whatever--we just don't have the same make-my-day image of righteous Justice or vengeance being doled out with a knife as we do with a handgun. I'm just glad we haven't heard the usual chorus claiming that if only all doctors were armed, this never would have happened.
Another Boston hospital,
Another Boston hospital, similar incident, ended much more happily by a guy who just happened to be there with a legally-carried gun: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/massachusetts.hospital.attack/index....
This is really quite sad.
Without having knowing either him or his family personally, I extend my condolences to this doctor's friends and loved ones.