GUILTY France - Dr. Daniele Canarelli charged after patient commits murder, Marseille, 2004

[Donjeta]

<respectfully snipped>

That is exactly the point. She could be found guilty by the French people and sentenced ... but in the US she would most likely be sued for malpractice and then she would be free to continue making serious, potentially fatal, errors in judgment.

Which is better for society?

a. the family gets a bucket of money (malpractice lawsuit), or
b. the guilty party, in this case the psychiatrist, is prosecuted for incompetence and is rehabilitated (it's only a year)

I'm not sure either alternative does a thing for the society. Getting a bucket of money is good for the economy of that particular family, but it's just money from one pocket to another and does little to the economy as a whole.

Supposing the psychiatrists really are incompetent, a year of jail or probation or home arrest isn't going to cure or "rehabilitate" that.

Supposing they aren't incompetent but were prosecuted because someone had to be blamed, a punishment won't do a thing to advance the society either. It may just make an educated professional quit his job.

The most useful thing they could do in cases like this is to reassess the competence of the professional team and the practices of the institution and suggest /require improvements where necessary.

 

[otto]

I'm not sure either alternative does a thing for the society. Getting a bucket of money is good for the economy of that particular family, but it's just money from one pocket to another and does little to the economy as a whole.

Supposing the psychiatrists really are incompetent, a year of jail or probation or home arrest isn't going to cure or "rehabilitate" that.

Supposing they aren't incompetent but were prosecuted because someone had to be blamed, a punishment won't do a thing to advance the society either. It may just make an educated professional quit his job.

The most useful thing they could do in cases like this is to reassess the competence of the professional team and the practices of the institution and suggest improvements where necessary.

I think there is quite a difference.

European prisons are geared towards rehabilitation, as we saw with Amanda Knox. If, at the end of a year, the psychiatrist continued to appear incompetent, I suppose the Friench psychiatric organization would strip her of her license to practice. A malpractice suit would most likely be processed through the insurance company.

It's my understanding that in the EU, the victim's civil suit is conducted at the same time as the criminal trial (again, we saw this with the lawyer for Meredith Kerchers during her murder tiral). The family was awarded 8500 euros, which is probably a lot less than a malpractice insurance claim against a psychiatrist and the facility.

It seems like this decision favors psychiatrists. Instead of horrendous increases in malpractice insurance rates, they pay a small fee, retrain for a year, and continue in their profession.

 

[Donjeta]

I think there is quite a difference.

European prisons are geared towards rehabilitation, as we saw with Amanda Knox. If, at the end of a year, the psychiatrist continued to appear incompetent, I suppose the Friench psychiatric organization would strip her of her license to practice. A malpractice suit would most likely be processed through the insurance company.

It's my understanding that in the EU, the victim's civil suit is conducted at the same time as the criminal trial (again, we saw this with the lawyer for Meredith Kerchers during her murder tiral). The family was awarded 8500 euros, which is probably a lot less than a malpractice insurance claim against a psychiatrist and the facility.

It seems like this decision favors psychiatrists. Instead of horrendous increases in malpractice insurance rates, they pay a small fee, retrain for a year, and continue in their profession.

With all due respect, European prisons may be geared toward rehabilitation of the prisoners but it's "how do we help these criminals not break the law in the future"? That is, they are trying to teach the criminals useful life skills that will help them stay out of fights, keep them sober, earn their living in a legal way and so on. You can't retrain to be a psychiatrist in prison. No prisons in Europe or anywhere else in the world are geared toward rehabilitating incompetent psychiatrists, as in "how do we help this medical professional be a better professional in the future"? It's quite outside the scope of the competency of the prison staff to help in that.

A year of compulsory re-education and clinical training under competent professional guidance would be far more to the point than a year of prison, if there is a competency problem.

However, what she got was a suspended prison sentence which I gather means that she won't have to do any prison time unless there is a problem during the probation period. I don't see anything in the news article about any retraining or competency exams.

As such it's just a punishment and won't do a thing for her professional competency if there is a problem with that.

(If she really is incompetent I'd rather they strike her off the lists now and not wait a year to do so.)

 

[anne11]

No prison time for her and it appears she has not been struck off the medical register

 

[Abby Normal Again]

Thanks for the link!

"A court in Marseilles said Daniele Canarelli, 58, had committed a "grave error" by failing to recognize the public danger posed by Joel Gaillard, her patient of four years.

...

Canarelli was handed a one-year prison sentence and ordered to pay 8,500 euros to the victim's children, in the first case of its kind in France.

...

The court said Canarelli should have requested Gaillard be placed in a specialized medical unit or referred him to another medical team, as one of her colleagues suggested. Her stubborn refusal had equated to a form of "blindness", the court president Fabrice Castoldi said.

Gaillard had already been forcibly committed to a secure hospital on several occasions for a series of increasingly dangerous incidents."

He's back in psychiatric care, and I think we can be sure that this time, he will be reffered to the correct medical team.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/18/us-france-murder-psychiatrist-idUSBRE8BH13X20121218

Do you notice that each of those are extremely vague statements? None of them really mean anything.

 

[Abby Normal Again]

<respectfully snipped>

That is exactly the point. She could be found guilty by the French people and sentenced ... but in the US she would most likely be sued for malpractice and then she would be free to continue making serious, potentially fatal, errors in judgment.

Which is better for society?

a. the family gets a bucket of money (malpractice lawsuit), or
b. the guilty party, in this case the psychiatrist, is prosecuted for incompetence and is rehabilitated (it's only a year)

It's completely naive to expect a human medical professional to never make the wrong judgment call.

EVERY medical professional will make a mistake of judgment in their lifetime, because they are human. Only a god could do the job free of error.

Man, I joke that we idolize doctors and confuse them with gods- but it's meant to be a joke!

 

[Abby Normal Again]

You do not know what you are talking about. There isn't a psychotherapist on the planet who has perfectly predicted the behavior of all his or her clients.

If there were, we could just give everyone a psych test and lock up future criminals in advance.

Thank you.

Science does not even come close to allowing the kind of perfection people are asking. Not even close.

 

[Abby Normal Again]

This is a helping profession, but it is a very specialized area of the helping profession. These are the people that understand how neurological changes impact behavior ... medicine, brain and behavior.

Surely French Psychiatrists are not paranoid ... afraid to ply their trade simply because an incompetent psychiatrist has been ordered to compensate the family (very small award) and assigned one year of prison rehabilitation.

The Psychiatrists have been protesting in her favor? Professionals will rarely put their name on a sinking ship- IOW professionals are standing with her, which tells you that as professionals they did not think she was criminally culpable.

That speaks volumes to me, personally. No professionals were supporting Michael Jackson's doctor because they all knew he had done something wrong.

They held signs outside her trial that said "this is our trial" and the judge, in her speech, stressed that all of psychiatry was not on trial. The fact that she had to say that, tells you what the community sentiment was.

The professional community as a whole are saying this is a sad, sad day for the community. Have you ever seen a professional community willing to be so outspoken on behalf of someone who committed gross negligence?

 

[Donjeta]

Prison or probation never made anyone infallible before but hey, it doesn't mean it can't happen tomorrow....

:nevermind:

 

[Abby Normal Again]

The court said Canarelli should have requested Gaillard be placed in a specialised medical unit or referred him to another medical team, as one of her colleagues suggested. Her refusal had equated to a form of "blindness", the court president, Fabrice Castoldi, said.

A colleague suggested that she move his care to another medical team. She didn't have a higher designation team to send him to, because she is the highest psychiatric designation. So a colleague suggested she pass the buck. It wasn't like everyone was screaming that he needed meds, and she ignored them. Someone suggested she pass the buck and she thought "what good will that do?" and continued seeing him. She most likely felt she was very close to a breakthrough in finding his correct medication combination and didn't think it wise for another doctor to have to start all over. Another equally educated doctor. It's not like she was a therapist who failed to pass him UP the chain of knowledge.

If you honestly think that psychiatrists should be held criminally responsible for crimes that bad people commit, then more power to you. Just don't expect there to be any good psychiatrists left when you, your kids, or your grandkids need mental health care. It will become a "throw away the key" profession, because you'll never know who may go bad.

 

[Abby Normal Again]

Prison or probation never made anyone infallible before but hey, it doesn't mean it can't happen tomorrow....

:nevermind:

Worth repeating.

 

[Quester]

http://referentiel.nouvelobs.com/file/4991099.jpg

Psychiatrist sentenced "[DC] is a scapegoat"

DC has appealed the judgement.

[Dr. JPB], DC's retired Head of Department who testified at trial and will testify at the appeal, said [DC] is a scapegoat.

It was said that [JG, the patient] should have been treated elsewhere, in a unit for difficult patients. However, after the murder, he is still in our hospital where he was returned!

[Dr. JPB] said at each step, she acted correctly.

She had never before been questioned in her career and she is stunned by this judgement.

[Dr. JPB] had also examined [JG], who he described as a very difficult patient with a very serious history.


Dec 31, 2012: Psychiatre condamnée : "Danièle Canarelli est un bouc-émissaire"
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/soci...-daniele-canarelli-est-un-bouc-emissaire.html

 

[annemc2]

A colleague suggested that she move his care to another medical team. She didn't have a higher designation team to send him to, because she is the highest psychiatric designation. So a colleague suggested she pass the buck. It wasn't like everyone was screaming that he needed meds, and she ignored them. Someone suggested she pass the buck and she thought "what good will that do?" and continued seeing him. She most likely felt she was very close to a breakthrough in finding his correct medication combination and didn't think it wise for another doctor to have to start all over. Another equally educated doctor. It's not like she was a therapist who failed to pass him UP the chain of knowledge.

If you honestly think that psychiatrists should be held criminally responsible for crimes that bad people commit, then more power to you. Just don't expect there to be any good psychiatrists left when you, your kids, or your grandkids need mental health care. It will become a "throw away the key" profession, because you'll never know who may go bad.

Thanks, Abby, for this post. I've been lurking and watching this thread with interest b/c I am a former mental health professional who decided not to go back into the workforce after I had children. It was simply too stressful and I lived in constant fear of making an error or of being involved with a patient who harmed himself or another person. I felt that the liability of doing what I trained for many years to do was just too great.

 

[anne11]

I live in a small french town where there is a large psych hospital, the management have a very liberal attitude to the freedom allowed to their patients they spend ther days wandering around town some visibly "chemically handcuffed" and generally there isn't a problem altough I did have to report one that was constantly hanging around the doorsto my duaghters school. I do have a problem with public hospitals and the doctor is God attitude it will probably be another 30 years before patient centered care is estbablished in hospitals here