Doctor reprimanded for secret sterilization

Learning disability is many times used instead of the cruel word+for a more cruel word-mentaly retarded. If she was, the Doctor did her a favor, she most likely has no judgement and has many kid's already. Let's not jump to any conclusion about the doctor before we all know the details which they do not give here.
ALl of you probably have to support these kid's which are mindlessly produced from sombody like her.

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The Hospital has the obligation to make sure that the patients best interest and welfare are taken care of. What idiot didn't check this doctor's right from wrong capabilities? The fact that this doctor sterilized a patient, (she must have thought she was in a 3rd world country where she can do what she wants to whom ever she wants, experiment, sterilize, whatever, and get a way with it because she has a college degree). This is a big problem because this is not a 3rd world country, though with people like those on the medical board in Arkansas are certainly an example of the stupid graduates that colleges in this country are putting out. The young have no common sense. People in Arkansas beware! Your state thinks you are dispensable. Pray you don't get into a car accident or get sick and are taken by ambulance to St Johns Hospital. They may start operating on you for a knee replacement and find out some super start just came in and is in need of a heart and decide to take yours because you have the same blood type. I know this sounds radical, but the Arkansas board just gave license to all it's doctors to do as they please.

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I got a good laugh at his Doctor! Secret Sterilization, seems the best way to ge this U.S. Population under control! Shame more Doctors are not doing this!

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HELLO people yes the doctor is very wrong. But you all are talking that the lady might have been poor, had too many children, babies being deformed and such. I don't condone what the doctor did but you aren't reading the article "Dr. Moffett claims that she surgically ensured that this woman would never have another child because she feared that the patient's uterus would burst if she ever got pregnant again." I still don't condone what the doctor did but ya'll need to start READING.

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Some women need this done. Turning out babies for
the state to support, having so many kids that the kids
suffer from not having their needs met. Come on people.
I lived next door to a woman like that when I was a kid.
The state made her have the surgery because her husband
was found in the hospital bed just hours after one of her births.
The state was supporting her so they had the right.

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There is no reason a doctor can come up with to justify an action such as this. I don't care for the number of children born to women which have no visable means of supporting them. Yet, I do stand beside anyone to maintain their right as a citizen of the United States, to be notified of any procedure done by a physician. They have no right to determine what a person does, or does not do with their body.

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Obviously there was a viable reason for the tubal ligation..The lady was offered to have it reversed 3 weeks after the procedure but she refused.........So it is obvious she felt it was in her best interest too.....She did not even sue the hospital or Doctor. Uterus's are at risk of bursting if you've had too many pregnancies..too many c-sections etc.....In this case this was the woman's first C-section ..One less woman I have to support with my hard earned money....WIC, Welfare, Food Stamps is paid for by the hard working people who act responsibly in having kids......
Great, you want a big family......then do it with your own money and if you can't then you shouldn't be having that many children....

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I'd be interested to know if this was a first for this doctor. More interesting is where she had her training. Go ahead and bite my head off but if foreign trained where this might be permissable what does this say of state boards of certification.?

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what a mess. and moral issues here. we just can't play God, regardless of the underlying circumstances. do i think some women should be sterilized? yes!!. but i also think it is an option that HAS to be given to them. i worked in a family practice as a medical assistant for 23 years. i saw family after family - up to 4 generations, who lived off the state, and kept having babies to get more money. in illinois, the state medical assistance card would hold up to 8 names at that time. guess what? there were women who had to have 2 cards. i believe the state should give these women options. the state should set a guideline on how many children they will pay for, and offer the woman a free tubal ligation. but...........when doctors start making decisions for us...then we are in trouble. our doctor is a person most of us trust or we wouldn't have them. so what this doctor did was set a precedence for us to NOT trust our doctors. especially those licensed to use a knife.

i have seen doctors lose their license over much less than this. how on earth could the medical board think only a reprimand was necessary. it appears to me that they thought the woman didn't need anymore children either, and overlooked the horror of what this doctor did. not only should the doctor lose her license, but the medical board needs to be sued for such a stupid decision.

may God help us.

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i agree with you devonshire. no one had the right to make this decision for the patient.

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Maybe the patient didn't have any family there. And if she was that mentally disabled and couldn't even bath herself then how is she supposed to make that decision that the doctor made for her?
I would like to know if the woman even got to keep her baby. If she can't take care of herself or even bath herself how is she going to take care of a child?
And how do we know if this is her first or her 6th child? The article doesn't say. For all we know her mental handicap could have made it so she was getting pregnant over and over again because she couldn't learn.
The job of a doctor is to keep the health of their patient. If the doctor was sure the patient would die if she got pregnant again, then she did the right thing for the patients well being. Her only mistake was not putting it in the file. At which rate I don't understand how they found out about the secret surgery anyways. Maybe when she didn't get pregnant again they got suspicious? Who knows.

But we all know she won't do it again. Personally i think more doctors should do that anyways. Too many people in this world. Its killing everything else in the world off.

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This woman should have lost her lisence immediatly!!! Why couldn't she say something while she was doing it or before? Cause as I recall I was awake for all my c-sections. This woman should sue the pants off her make her pay to have it reversed and also pay for any fertility she would or will have t5o go through if any. Things like this should not go unpunished with a reprimand. My doctors confermed my tubal ten times before my c-section when I went to the hospital they did and right before she was gonna tie mine to just make sure. My Dr was responsible Hers wasn't do what u have to do to get your life back I hope she is able to reverse it.

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Forced sterilization sounds like a great idea, with all the bad people breeding and producing more bad people,, problem is it was tried back in the 30s, and sooner or later they will shift focus, and aim there scalpel at you or I for some reason ,, all people should be held accountable for there actions and rewarded or punished just the same

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This was an assault, plain and simple. Not only should the "doctor" have been stripped of a medical license, she should be charged with the crime and tried and convicted in court. She should serve time. Oh, and she should have her tubes tied, too, against her will.

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As a medical professional that is the most just appaling thing i have ever heard in my life ... I am curious how old the patient was .. what is she wanted more children? She pretty much jsut ruined that for that woman ... who gives her the right to do such a careless act. She should lose her license and be put in jail if ya ask me!

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What I don't get is if the doctor did it, didn't make any notes on the records and didn't tell the patient, how did they find out?

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Everyone keeps saying that there are things being left out of this article. Things such as the patient has a learning disability, she has had many other children, she had to be bathed every month at her check up, etc. Would someone please post a link to another article with respect to this woman and her situation. This is the only place where I have read about this incident and would really like to read about it from another reporters point of view. Obviously it exists as so many of you are insistent on mentioning facts that have been left out of this particular article.

Although the doctor did perform a procedure on a patient without consent, the doctor or the nurses should have sat down and talked to the patient, or the patient's advocate if she were not able to understand what was going on. I don't buy into the idea that no one else new that this patient was sterilized. To say so, is to suggest that the doctor performed the sterilization free of charge. When was the last time that you have heard of a doctor or hospital performing a medical procedure free of charge? HAH! NEVER! Cause that would mean that the doctor and the hospital would lose money. So if no one really didn't know that a sterilization had been performed, then why wasn't the doctor charged with theft. Cause that's what it would surmount to, theft of hospital time and supplies and theft of the patients fertility. Not to mention a breach of the patients constitutional right to choose. Also, if this is such a big issue with the patient, why didn't the patient sue. After all, this is a case of medical malpractice.

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