Interview with Dr. Pou, New Orleans Physician

MSNBC has published an interview with Dr. Anna Pou, the Head and Neck surgeon, specializing in cancer, whose strength of character led her to stay with her patients after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the infrastructure and societal protections in New Orleans in 2005. The interview is a testament to the integrity of this woman and an indictment against Attorney General Foti of Louisiana, who tried to indict the doctor for sticking with patients when her own life was endangered. Rather than wait for a medical review, the AG criminalized what I believe might have been heroic actions on the part of the doctor.

How's that for an emotionally loaded and biased report? I don't believe that I would report it any other way.

The description of battlefield triage is cursory, as is the information on the problem of "double effect," when treatment of symptoms is known to, but not intended to, increase the risk of death. The doctor is very generous to the man who abused his power to attempt to indict her for murder and to the corporate medicine climate that left her and the people with her so alone.

I hope you'll take the time to read the interview. I was relieved to see a specific statement that Dr. Pou never intended to cause the death of the patients.