Dirty Doctors: Virtual 'True Crime' Event by Lancaster Medical Heritage Museum
October 09, 2024 |
| Dirty Doctor's Webinar by Lancaster Medical Heritage Museum - Lancaster, October 2024 |
Good afternoon beautiful people,
Hope you are enjoying your day.
It is October, which means everyone has a spookiness related event or activity. I attended a virtual event yesterday that I really enjoyed. It was a 'true crime' type event hosted by Lancaster Medical Heritage Museum (which is on my 'to visit' list). I learnt about the museum from Dr SG (my 'former' research professor) who volunteers there.
About the Museum
According to the website, the museum was founded in 1982, and aims 'to preserve and make accessible the rich heritage of the healing arts, with special attention given to Lancaster County'. They also do research on the 'history of medicine and medical institutions in Lancaster county and surrounding areas' - think this is what my Prof helps with (not sure).
The Event
I learnt about the event from their mailing list (which I joined after hearing about the place a couple of times from my Prof). The webinar title - Dirty Doctors: A Halloween True Crime Event - did it for me.
I am not a big Halloween person, guess it is because I never grew up around it but it looks like I am liking these sideline events...last year it was texts of terror series at church, this year a webinar on doctors.
Two reasons I signed up for this event 1) the psychology student in me is always looking for opportunities to do some differential diagnosis a la my Psychopathology class and 2) since watching Fulton Theatre's Key West Musical (and Peacock's Dr. Death series), I developed a curiosity for doctors who have done their patients, and the healing/medical space, dirty (wonder if there are examples in the psychology space - or does Freud take one for the team). As a FYI, the Key West guy did not endanger or kill the lady, but he did things to her corpse...and Freud just had really extreme theories about everything.
The event/webinar looked at three doctors and a nurse (all male, based in US,UK & Germany). The presentation was done by Kim Jovinelli (the museum's Executive Director), who began by sharing three things believed to motivate the harm done by doctors - Sadism (dominance/manipulation), Mercy Killing (playing God, end suffering) and Malignant Hero (purposeful endangerment, hero complex).
Featured Practitioners
1. Dr Henry Howard Holmes (US): Dubbed America's first serial killer, with most of his killings believed to have been done in Murder Castle (which currently a post office in Chicago) - added it to my bucket list). Watch out for shows about him on Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV.
2. Dr Harold Shipman (UK): This is the real Dr. Death in the UK (I talked about the US Dr. Death TV series on Peacock in my recap of the Key West Musical). This doctor targeted elderly women who he overdosed then add himself to their wills. Check out related shows on Amazon Prime.
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| I was so intrigued by the presentation, I did not write any notes after the presenter introduced the first doctor - Lancaster, October 2024 |
3. Dr William Palmer (UK): Prince of Poisoners who who used his 'poisoning credentials' (my words) to not only poison family to get insurance money to sustain his gambling lifestyle, he also befriended, poisoned and killed a guy called John Cook, who had won in one of the horse race bets he had lost. Look for shows about him on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
4. Nurse Niels Hoegel (Germany): Nicknamed Resuscitation Rambo, because he would drug patients so that they could have cardiac issues, then he would play hero and save them. Well this Rambo failed, not once not twice but 85 times. If you know of any shows about him, please share.
Reflection
I may have said this in a previous post, but I have not here it is, in writing, I retired from the whole True Crime wave because I was one show away from getting addicted and living in perpetual anxiety. I, however, add true-crimish things to my read/watch list as reminders to look for watered down versions of the story...and if I cannot get, that was not a story I needed to know about.
You can watch the full webinar (40 minutes) on the museum's Youtube page (their settings wont let my embedding ways prosper). Everyone who attended the webinar asked for a Part 2. I hope we get one - you know I will do a blog post if they do- and I also hope to have visited the museum before then.
My mind is already working on a research paper on how training and professional bodies can or should do to prevent/reduce these cases, keep patients safe etc etc but that is a post for another day (and to quote the museum's ED, this is a very small percentage of health providers)...since it is spooky month, I will say, be safe on these treatment and recovery streets.
Sending love and light,
Sitawa
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