When you hand over your wellbeing to a medical professional, you expect competence and compassion. Yet, the reality sometimes includes 10 nightmarish breaches that shake that confidence to its core. Below, we count down the most disturbing betrayals of trust by those sworn to heal.
Understanding the 10 Nightmarish Breaches
10 A Doctor Encourages A Patient To Commit Suicide
Dr. Arun Singhal, a general practitioner in Liverpool, England, faced a terrified woman on antidepressants in May 2011. The patient, identified only as “Patient A,” was slated to testify in a rape trial and feared proximity to the suspect’s brother. She called Dr. Singhal for a sick note, confessing that her medication was failing and that she teetered on the edge of suicide.
Instead of offering help, Dr. Singhal responded like a cruel internet troll. He labeled her a “disgrace” and bluntly told her to “jolly well kill herself,” even suggesting she search the web for suicide tips. Unaware that the woman was recording the exchange, he delivered his chilling advice. Outraged, Patient A filed a complaint.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service investigated and concluded that Dr. Singhal had taken the patient’s statements too lightly and behaved in an inexcusable manner. He received a three‑month suspension – a fate many consider lenient given how close the patient came to tragedy.
9 Hospital Employee Sends Patients Fake Lobotomy Letters
From 2005 to 2010, Michelle Morrison worked as a senior account representative for Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. After being terminated, she turned vengeful, pilfering hospital stationery and confidential files belonging to more than thirty patients.
Between February 2011 and June 2012, Morrison mailed six bogus letters to three former patients, claiming their psychological treatment had failed and that they now required frontal lobotomies. The letters were laced with crude insults and threats to expose the patients’ private information to friends, family, and coworkers.
A two‑month investigation uncovered Morrison’s wrongdoing. She was caught with stolen files at her home, pleaded guilty, and received a sentence of thirty months’ probation after issuing a public apology in court.
8 Nursing Home Employees Play Cruel Jokes On Dementia Patients
In 2010, six staff members at Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility in Ukiah, California, decided it would be funny to slather seven defenseless dementia patients with ointment, turning them into slippery “challenge” victims for the next shift. Their prank led to arrests.
The incident was not isolated. In May 2012, an employee at the UK‑based Kirknowe Care Home was dismissed after feeding a dog treat to a dementia patient as a joke. Tracie Nellis, another staff member, later deposited hot sauce into the mouths of two sleeping dementia patients, prompting her to relinquish her nursing license voluntarily.
These cases illustrate a broader pattern of abuse within care facilities, where vulnerable patients are sometimes subjected to cruel and humiliating antics by those entrusted with their safety.
7 A Doctor Slaps The Butts Of Sedated Patients
For at least a year, Dr. Michael T. Clarke, a physician at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, New York, seemed to take pleasure in hearing the sharp thwack of his hand against the buttocks of unconscious patients in the operating room. He tried to justify the behavior as a way to gauge spinal anesthetic effectiveness.
Colleagues, however, reported a very different picture. Dr. Clarke allegedly delivered sexually explicit insults while striking patients, sometimes leaving vivid red handprints. He also hurled lewd remarks at staff. After months of silence, operating‑room staff finally alerted administrators in December 2013.
A state health‑department investigation corroborated the complaints. Dr. Clarke was suspended in February 2014 and required to complete undisclosed steps before reinstatement. Eight months later, he returned to the OR at St. Joseph’s.
6 A Surgeon Sends Sexts Mid‑Operation
Arthur K. Zilberstein, an anesthesiologist with two decades of experience at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, crossed a line that no medical professional should. Across a range of procedures—caesarean sections, pediatric appendectomies, and more—he sent nearly 250 sexually suggestive texts and explicit photos to his girlfriend and, on occasion, to his own patients.
In one shocking instance, he sent a patient a selfie showing his genitals dangling while dressed in hospital attire. During a stomach surgery, he dispatched 45 lust‑filled messages in under ninety minutes.
Beyond the sexting, Dr. Zilberstein was accused of reviewing patients’ records for personal gratification, engaging in hospital romances, and issuing unauthorized prescriptions. While it remains unclear whether his conduct directly harmed any patient, state officials deemed his behavior sufficient to suspend his medical license and revoke his hospital privileges.
5 An Anesthetist Punches His Patient After Heart Surgery
Dr. Andrei Votyakov, an anesthetist at Russia’s Federal Center for Cardiovascular Surgery in Perm, endured a grueling 36‑hour shift before his patience snapped. After a recent heart‑bypass patient, who was strapped to the bed and wearing an oxygen mask, allegedly insulted him, Dr. Votyakov lost composure.
He struck the patient in the face and then pounded the fragile chest area directly above the heart. The patient, a 61‑year‑old man, later died a week after the assault.
Video footage from February 21, 2013 captured the confrontation, which quickly spread online, sparking public outrage and an official investigation. Dr. Votyakov apologized for his violent outburst but denied responsibility for the death. A criminal investigation concluded with a fine of 100,000 rubles and a five‑month community‑service sentence.
4 A Nurse Steals From Sleeping Cancer Patients
In January 2015, Morriston Hospital in Wales launched a sting operation after noticing a string of patient robberies dating back to the previous November. Staff suspected an insider and set a marked £20 note under a plant pot as bait.
The trap caught 49‑year‑old nurse Jacqueline Perry, who worked on the cancer ward. Perry waited for patients to fall asleep before rifling through their belongings to fund her husband’s cider habit. She stole painkillers, cash, and jewelry—including three rings worth a combined £1,800 from 89‑year‑old Nancy Thomas, who died shortly thereafter.
In total, Perry pocketed £2,739 of valuables. She later expressed relief at being caught, citing overwhelming guilt. Her sentence was sixteen months in prison, though some of her victims never lived long enough to see justice.
3 A Doctor Secretly Records Patients’ Pelvic Exams
Dr. Nikita A. Levy, a gynecologist and obstetrician at Johns Hopkins Community Medicine in Baltimore, held a respectable 25‑year tenure. Yet, for at least eight of those years, he covertly wore a camera‑pen to film gynecological exams of unsuspecting patients.
Johns Hopkins discovered his actions after a female colleague reported suspicions about his pen in 2013. Law enforcement uncovered over 1,200 videos and pictures dating back to 2005. Across his 25‑year career, Dr. Levy examined an estimated 12,692 women, any of whom could have been recorded.
Although no evidence indicated the recordings were used for anything beyond personal viewing, the violation of privacy was profound. Many victims reported refusing further medical care. A class‑action lawsuit resulted in a $190 million settlement to over 7,000 former patients. Ten days after being exposed, Dr. Levy wrote an apology to his wife and then died by suicide using helium and a plastic bag.
2 A Drunken Anesthetist Accidentally Kills A New Mother
On September 26, 2014, Belgian‑born Helga Wauters began a two‑week stint at a private French clinic. Though an experienced anesthetist since 1994, she was new to the facility. When 28‑year‑old Xynthia Hawke entered labor, Wauters administered an epidural.
After the epidural, Wauters left to have a drink with friends. Labor complications later required a caesarean section, demanding precise intubation. Upon returning, visibly intoxicated, Wauters mistakenly inserted the ventilation tube into Hawke’s esophagus instead of the trachea, causing a heart attack. Hawke died four days later; her child survived.
Investigators found 17 empty vodka bottles at Wauters’ home and determined she had a serious drinking problem. She claimed a “glass of rosé” after the epidural and a water‑vodka mix before the caesarean. Blood tests revealed she was five times over the legal alcohol limit. Initially denied bail, Wauters eventually posted €50,000 bail, was barred from practicing medicine, and entered a rehabilitation program.
1 Doctors Who Ditch Patients Mid‑Surgery
At Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, California, cardiac surgeon Dr. Pervaiz Chaudhry performed nearly 350 bypass surgeries between 2009 and 2010, ranking among the state’s top five heart surgeons by volume. Yet his survival rate lagged behind peers, prompting allegations that he abandoned patients mid‑operation.
Lawsuits accuse Dr. Chaudhry of leaving the operating room before completing surgeries. In one case, he left a physician’s assistant to close a patient’s chest while he attended a luncheon. The 72‑year‑old patient, Silvino Perez, suffered a myocardial infarction and was left in a persistent vegetative state. The hospital was fined $75,000, and a state health‑department investigation found Dr. Chaudhry had recklessly endangered the patient.
Chaudhry is not the sole offender. In 2012, a Swedish anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist abandoned a tumor‑removal surgery for lunch, leaving the patient without ventilation. A substitute nurse, lacking the necessary expertise, failed to notice the ventilator had been turned off and missed a sudden hemorrhage. By the time the original team returned, the patient had been deprived of oxygen for eight minutes and later died from brain damage.