#he is medical malpractice but for lawyers

[aseplant]

phoenix LIE LIKE A DOG wright is crazy

[byjove]

Why do doctors and nurses get so mad when people talk about medical malpractice and abuse/neglect they received at the hands of medical experts? Could you imagine if someone who was wrongfully convicted was like “My defense attorney totally failed me and I lost 15 years of my life because of it. He dropped the ball, failed to represent me or collect and organize the evidence that would have cleared me.” and every lawyer in the world was in their comments like “Maybe you WANTED to go to jail and he could see it. It was YOUR responsibility to make sure he knew you weren’t actually guilty. There was absolutely nothing he could have done to prove your innocence since he refused to run the DNA that would have cleared you. Why are you lying to make us look bad?”

[atavist]

An ob-gyn in Virginia performed unnecessary surgeries on patients for decades. He took their reproductive organs, gave them false cancer diagnoses, and did other terrible harm. When his victims learned the truth, they fought back. Issue no. 146, DAMAGES, is now available: 

[Debra] requested her medical records and was stunned to find discrepancies with what Perwaiz had said to her during appointments. Most glaringly, she didn’t see any mention of precancerous cells on her cervix; the tests Perwaiz performed on her had come back normal. “If I was normal,” Debra said, “why did I have a surgery?”

There were other inconsistencies. One form from an appointment described Debra complaining of back and pelvic pain, which she told me she never did. Another document dated the day before her surgery stated that she “insisted on having those ovaries removed through the abdominal wall incision and not vaginally,” and that the “consent obtained after entirely counseling the patient [was] for abdominal hysterectomy.” In fact, she had requested the opposite surgical approach, and she recalled no such conversation with Perwaiz; the only time she’d spoken with him in the lead-up to her procedure was in passing in the hospital hallway.

Debra was sure she had a malpractice case. She went to several lawyers, but none of them would take her on as a client. “So many men—man after man saying, ‘You had a decent amount of care, and that’s all you’re afforded,’ ” she said. Frustrated, she came up with a new plan: “I said, ‘Alright, I’m going to learn how to sue this bastard myself.’ ”

[alpaca-clouds]

I learned an important lesson yesterday: Lawyers are fucking magic. They wave their "make your problems go away" stick and your problems go away.

It turns out that the family of one of my work colleagues entirely works in medical law. So, I talked with them on the phone yesterday. And in the end his dad called the hospital yesterday in the afternoon. And he was just like: "Gentle reminder: Not treating your patients is in fact illegal. If it turns out your diagnosis is wrong and you hence treated it wrongly, there is no fault. But if you have a diagnosis and do not treat it, that is actually malpractice. Do you need this in writing or will this phone call surfice?" And I kid you not, 15 minutes later I finally got the corticoids I have been trying to get for 8 fucking weeks.

Moral of the story: I will get myself legal insurance now. Because it allows me the ability to go: "I will call my lawyer."

In Germany there is the saying: "There is a difference between having a legal right and being able to use a legal right." And I am afraid this difference is called having a fucking lawyer.

And given how many times some companies already pulled shit like: "You gotta pay XYZ" because they know that a lot of people will simply pay up... Yeah... I so far always took myself a lawyer, who then just replied: "No, I do not think my client will pay that." To which the companies would always react with: "Oh. Okay. I guess."

There was a case once where one of my phone providers suddenly came out of nowhere like: "Oh, you did not properly end our contract with us. Now pay up 3000€ for the last three years." And I had the presence of mind to just go to a lawyer. And the lawyer was like: "I do not think my client will pay it. But we will be kind and pay for six months, which would be 120€." And the phone provider was liek: "Oh. Oh. Yeah. Uhm... That is fair."

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Not at all making fun of that anon but the medical malpractice ask made me giggle. Hey sex witch can you help sort out my dads estate? He didn’t leave a will. you’re like a lawyer to me

yeah you want me to do your taxes while I'm at it? give me your social security number i am trustworthy

[dhaaruni]

It was the medical examiner, not the doctors at the hospital, who removed Lillian from Crain’s womb. His autopsy didn’t resolve Fails’ lingering questions about what the hospitals missed and why. He called the death “natural” and attributed it to “complications of pregnancy.” He did note, however, that Crain was “repeatedly seeking medical care for a progressive illness” just before she died. Last November, Fails reached out to medical malpractice lawyers to see about getting justice through the courts. A different legal barrier now stood in her way. If Crain had experienced these same delays as an inpatient, Fails would have needed to establish that the hospital violated medical standards. That, she believed, she could do. But because the delays and discharges occurred in an area of the hospital classified as an emergency room, lawyers said that Texas law set a much higher burden of proof: “willful and wanton negligence.” No lawyer has agreed to take the case.

[thenonbinarydetective]

I'm gonna say this in the loosest most bastardized way that I can, but I absolutely adore how ghostwriters will absolutely abuse the fact that Carson has his own law firm as an excuse for him to do whatever the hell he wants.

Although there is some amount of "wiggle-room" in real life with lawyers in Carson's position, I know it's not even remotely close to being accurate but Carson can get away with it because he's just that good of a lawyer and he owns his own business.

He is technically a criminal prosecutor. But also a defense attorney whenever he feels like it. Or Nancy asks him to do it because he will do anything for her. Sometimes if he's bored he'll look into real estate law or if Nancy asks him to do it. And then also estate planning, environmental law, animal rights, business, immigration, employment, medical malpractice, and anything else a general practice attorney would do without actually ever calling himself one because he does have a specialty.

The ghostwriters were really like, "Carson Drew can do whatever the fuck he wants because he's Carson Drew" and that is fantastic.

And now you know why Nancy is the way that she is

[she-is-ovarit]

Detransitioner news

I have been thinking about detransitioners lately and wanted to compile articles I have been seeing. This will be a longer post and reblogged for part II as I hope to copy and paste brief portions of the articles under each headline.

Law firm for detransitioners opens in Dallas

In all of the controversy around gender transition, there is one group that is persistently marginalized by both the right and left. They are known as detransitioners — people who decide that they want to return to their birth gender, often after receiving years of interventional care, including surgery, to treat their gender dysphoria. Now, the nation’s first law firm focused solely on representing these patients — many of whom feel abused by a medical system that encouraged their treatment — has opened its doors in Dallas. It could forever change how hospitals and doctors approach what’s known as gender-affirming care.

Archive link

Fenway Community Health Center in Boston, the largest provider of transgender medicine in New England and one of the leading institutions of its kind in the United States, was named a defendant in a lawsuit filed last month. The plaintiff, a gay man who goes by the alias Shape Shifter, argues that by approving him for hormones and surgeries, Fenway Health subjected him to “gay conversion” practices, in violation of his civil rights. Carlan v. Fenway Community Health Center is the first lawsuit in the United States to argue that “gender-affirming care” can be a form of anti-gay discrimination. The case underscores an important clinical reality: gender dysphoria has multiple developmental pathways, and many who experience it will turn out to be gay. Even the Endocrine Society concedes that many of the youth who outgrow their dysphoria by adolescence later identify as gay or bisexual. Decades of research confirm as much. Gender clinicians in the U.K. used to have a “dark joke . . . that there would be no gay people left at the rate [the Gender Identity Development Service] was going,” former BBC journalist Hannah Barnes reported. Rather than help young gay people to accept their bodies and their sexuality, what if “gender-affirming” clinicians are putting them on a pathway to irreversible harm?

Due partly to Shape’s lifelong difficulty in accepting himself as gay, his lawyers are not taking the usual approach to detransition litigation. Rather than state a straightforward claim of medical malpractice or fraud, they allege that Fenway Health has violated Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in health care. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “discrimination because of . . . sex” includes discrimination based on homosexuality. Citing this and other precedents, Shape’s lawyers argue that federal law affords distinct protections to gay men and lesbians—upon which clinics that operate with a transgender bias are trampling. Shape grew up in a Muslim country in Eastern Europe that he describes in an interview as “very traditional” and “homophobic.” His parents disapproved of his effeminate demeanor and interests as a child. They wouldn’t let him play with dolls, and his mother, he says, made him do stretches so that he would grow taller and appear more masculine. At 11, Shape had his first of several sexual encounters with older men. “I was definitely groomed,” he recounts. Shape proceeded to develop a pattern of risky sexual behavior, according to his legal complaint. He told his medical team at Fenway Health about his childhood sexual experiences, calling them “consensual.” The Fenway providers never challenged him on this interpretation, he alleges. They never suggested that he might have experienced sexual trauma or, say, explored how these events might have shaped his feelings of dissociation. (The irony is that Fenway Health describes its model of care as “trauma-informed.”)

Archive link

Ontario detransitioner who had breasts and womb removed sues doctors

An Ontario detransitioning woman who had her breasts and womb removed to change her gender to male is suing medical and health practitioners for failing to consider other treatments during her mental health crisis before ushering her on an irreversible journey she regrets. Michelle Zacchigna, 34, of Orillia, Ont., north of Toronto, names eight health professionals, including doctors, psychologists, a psychotherapist and a counsellor in a lawsuit filed in Ottawa. None of the defendants, who work or worked at various clinics and institutions in southern Ontario, responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit prior to deadline. Four of the defendants have filed notices of intent to defend against the suit in Ontario Superior Court, but no statements of defense have been filed. None of the claims have been tested in court. Zacchigna said she faces an uphill battle in her lawsuit. “I’ve been under the impression that all medical malpractice suits are challenging. Doctors win the majority of cases in Canada,” she told National Post. “It’s very much a David vs. Goliath undertaking.” In her statement of claim filed in court in November, Zacchigna says she had difficulty forming relationships with classmates in elementary school and was often bullied. By the time she was 11, she engaged in self-harming behaviour, including cutting her arm with a knife. This continued into early adulthood. When she was 20, she tried to kill herself and she was referred by her family doctor for psychotherapy, where she was treated for social anxiety and clinical depression. She remained unhappy and depressed, and her mental health decline led to her dropping out of university, according to her claim. About a year into therapy, she engaged with an online community around gender nonconformity. “Michelle came to believe that her biological sex of female did not match her true gender identity of male,” her claim says. “She further came to believe that this mismatch between her biological sex and gender identity was causing her feelings of depression, self-harming behaviour and unease in her body, a mental health condition commonly known as gender dysphoria,” her claim states. This was the first time Zacchigna felt she was born in the wrong body, and she had not previously identified as male, her claim says. “However, as a result of what she read on the internet, she became convinced that she was a transgender man, and that once she embraced this new identity, her depression would subside.” Zacchigna started attending a support group in Toronto for people considering gender transition. A counsellor there told her of opportunities to proceed through a medical transition, her claim says. Zacchigna was invited to apply for medical intervention in 2010. The counsellor wrote a recommendation letter outlining a medical history that didn’t fully match her real past, the claim says. The counsellor didn’t recommend any alternatives, or seek confirmation of Zacchigna’s own diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Her regular therapist also wrote a recommendation for transition treatment, saying Zacchigna was an “ideal candidate for hormone therapy,” even though the therapist had no previous transgender clients, according to the claim.

Part II incoming.

[spilledmilkfkdies]

For scientific purposes. Say, you were in a courtroom. You're looking at possibly lifelong in solitary confinement for a crime you didn't commit. Duman is your lawyer. He knows of your innocence, but he also absolutely despises you for some reason.

OR- Or!!

You're about to go in for life altering surgery, in walks Duman to perform it. He has a valid medical licence and several years of experience. He has also skipped lunch and thinks medical malpractice is kinda funny. But not haha funny, only nose exhale funny.

Also keep in mind that he just straight up looks like this in both scenarios, they're just letting him do that for some reason, don't think too hard about it- It surprisingly does not affect his credibility in any way. Except maybe in your eyes.

[things-stankyle-probably-said]

do we know what kind of attorney gerald broflovski is? is he a prosecutor? a defense attorney? is he a corporate lawyer? personal injury? family? intellectual property? medical malpractice? is he a partner at his law firm? does he have his own law firm???

the average annual salary for an attorney is around $126,000 or higher around the $140,000 mark or more so I do think the broflovskis are the wealthiest of the main 4 boys families

[northernyogurt]

Oh my gosh! I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Finn/Jake/Piers please!

Btw I did a quick look and it looks like there's a fic for that throuple ship on AO3, so other people seem to enjoy it too! I really wish there were a lot more content for them though. 😭

They're such a good ship!

WHEN I TELL YOU. I RUSHED TO READ THAT FIC. I GOT SO SO EXCITED I'VE BEEN STARVING FOR FOOD FOR JAKINNIERS FOR LIKE TWO YEARS AND IT'S FINALLY HAPPENED!!!!! i seriousluy feel like im going to have a meltdown im so excited i've written several things of my own on these three i just never really finish things or get them to a point where i feel good enough to publish them? i have tons of things hidden away but one day maybe they'll be finished one i was working on was some sort of fun and whimsical lawyer-esque au? where the BSAA was actually a law firm located in raccoon city and were in the middle of a long lawsuit on albert wesker/tricell for medical malpractice/unethical practices or something akin to that. and chris had taken a few people from his team on a vacation in LA to keep spirits up and have some fun, and there finn and piers (being pretty close in the firm, at that point) would get lost and meet jake, a (currently) LA 'resident' thug who knew the streets pretty well and helped them get around. i still like the concept and i've been thinking of returning but jojo brainworms are overtaking me so it's been rough to do anything resident evil related (but i may return for a short while just to get some jakinniers shit out cuz i miss them) actual rambling under the cut v

but like as for in actuality, aka the string of events ive actually procured; in of course an everyone-lives au, i imagine finn to be the one to get jake and piers to set their differences aside and bring the three of them together, in a sense. piers and finn weren't super close before the ambush in edonia, though piers still cared for finn marginally as he would any other soldier. it wasn't until they were both in recovery in a BSAA-owned lab for rehabilitating bioweapons that they actually became close with one another. they're both in there until about 2014, thanks to jake's blood being the key to manufacturing some kind of "cure", or at least something to satiate or cut off the effects of the c-virus. finn has a lot longer to go than piers - seeing as he was hit with a more crude, destructive version of the virus - but they're both stable, and that's what matters. they attend the 2014 rewards ceremony for their bravery in edonia. finn doesn't see jake there-- sherry says he didn't want to go, didn't want to make the trip, which is.. fair enough. he's still upset for a reason piers cannot understand. but in 2015, chris holds a christmas party, which is something he likes to do often. by now, piers and finn are in some sort of weird situationship that finn wants to put a name to, but piers won't budge, unwilling to admit his fear of commitment to something like a relationship. regardless they attend this party together and, lo and behold, that ginger fuck shows up. piers is greatly upset, wondering how the hell he'd be allowed when he literally shot the host of the party in 2012, but chris actually seems okay with it, so he can push aside his anger for now and let it go, just wanting to get this social event over with, aaand great finn is going to literally talk to him. amazing finn actually just wants to thank jake for what he's done, and jake is like, reasonably a bit awkward and confused, having had his cute little character arc where he's like not a bad person now, but somehow the conversation turns and they hit it off. hooray! that's how that happens. now within a few weeks finn is juggling two odd situationships at once and loves both of them but can't exactly just admit that because that would mean "choosing", or at least that's how he sees it this is getting a bit long so im going to try and speed-explain: jake pops into finn's place at some point to give him something, piers is there. cue awkwardness and tension. something snaps, piers goes off, is very upset to see jake is hanging around piers's boyfriend-not-boyfriend-technical-situationship-thingy, they talk things out after an almost-argument and discover they actually aren't too different. relationships between the three of them develop over a few months, but nothing official because nobody is really sure how to go about this, then on a semi-drunken night jake is like "what if we were just all together at once i hate monogamy" and?? they just slowly start calling each other their boyfriend. of course they don't come out to anyone for a while (but everyone has known lmao) happily ever after huzzah! that's such a quick explanation of something that in my mind is so intricate i don't really know how else to squash that down while still keeping key points. there's so much to it and i imagine it'd be a VERY slow burn that all of them get frustrated about at points (especially finn, being the most eager to actually jump into an official title of their weird relationship, but the other two being a lot more on the fence about it) you just have to trust me might go into this more and if you have any specific questions i would LOVE TO ANSWER. i love talking about them very much and all the different aus/ideas i have in my head

[savvylittlecoxswain]

I AM FREAKING TF OUT

You may or may not remember that at some point a while back I posted about how maybe Bobby became a lawyer who specialized in medical malpractice and stuff, inspired by the lawyer that helped his family after the doctor messed up his surgery. As it turns out, I wasn’t too far off because he was literally a health lawyer. He didn’t work so much with clients, though he did work a lot with hospitals.

His firm “was one of only two in the state [of Washington] that had a municipal bond counsel practice” and they had “approved a number of tax exempt bondages to finance hospital facilities.” That’s a lot of big words I know, but it sounds like he worked a lot with hospitals to help get them the facilities they needed to treat their patients. So I guess maybe his health issues growing up did end up pushing him towards becoming a lawyer.

[pathogenflock]

Name: Rafael

Age: 19

Pronouns: he

Interests: Nathan Pandit

adults, minors, employed people, unemployed people, chronically online people, acutely offline people, ai artists, traditional artists, digital artists, bots, real people, aspiring authors, published authors, starving artists, well-fed artists, nsfw accounts, sfw accounts, people who think in black and white, people who acknowledge nuance, neurotypical people, neurodivergent people, blond people in romantic relationships with other blond people, polyamorous, monogamous, polygamous, men, women, everyone between and outside of that, anyone to whom that spectrum as a whole does not apply, people in healthy relationships (mutually toxic ones are fine as long as you let me watch ^-^), allocishet people, aroace trans gay people, pregnant people of any gender at their late 2nd- early 3rd trimester, French people (Quebecois people are on thin ice, but the rest of Canada also DNI), my 5th grade english teacher, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, polysexuals, omnisexuals, police without a warrant, police with a warrant, drunk driving antis and neutrals, woke moralists, asleep degenerates, people with blue or green eyes, people with cavities, small business owners, megacorp CEOs, microorganisms that cannot breach the blood-brain barrier, vivisection antis, fandom elders, fandom middle-aged, fandom youths, people who dont read DNIs if theyre "too long," people with long DNIs cus im not reading that shit, people who send death threats, discord e-daters (i hope you break up), selfship haters bc why do you hate fun, medical malpractice lawyers, my ex-wife Miranda and her stupid fucking lawyer you can keep the house but you'll never have my dignity you stupid assholes 🖕🖕🖕🖕, my beloved son Eduardo except on weekends, flat earthers, globe earthers, earth "neutrals," people who hate on online relationships or think they dont "count," pro shippers, pro kayakers, and pro skaters, people who donate to ao3 (this one's for real), monolinguals, trilinguals, selfshippers lmaoo thats so cringe sorry, transphobes (homophobes are fine), anyone located within 50 kilometers of -57.40378, 118.63882, twinks, bears (person not the animal), activists, staticists, gambling addicts but if you send me $50 i may or may not take you off this list, autism moms, autism dads, autism parents who lost it all in the divorce (now demoted to neurotypical parent), autism not the step dads but the dads that stepped up, people who think women can get pregnant (only men do that), people who cant solve my riddles three, bears (the animal), The Bear (the show), people with "ironic" dni lists who are trying way too hard to be funny, debt collectors, toothpaste flag users, toothbrush flag users, "we live in a simulation" dumbasses, anyone whose high school mascot was that shitty bulldog png (you know the one), furries (scalies are fine). may add more

People with the first name "Nathan" and the last name "Pandit."

[yanderecrazysie]

request: yandere!shirabu with shy!reader

tbh any form of shirabu like school, doctor, eyc. works cause he’s amazing anf your writing is amazing so it will be great

-anon🥂💍

My first request for Shirabu! *wipes happy tears* I can’t pass up Doctor Shirabu, now can I? And yes he is amazing!! And I’m so glad you think my writing is too!!!

Title: Malpractice

Pairings: Shirabu Kenjirou x Reader

WARNINGS: Yandere themes, medical malpractice, Shirabu is a terrible doctor

Summary: How far will Shirabu go to make sure he keeps his favorite patient by his side?

malpractice

/noun/

improper, illegal, or negligent professional activity or treatment, especially by a medical practitioner, lawyer, or public official.

Shirabu had always put his emotions aside in favor of logic and practicality.

Logic, he believed, was most important for a job like this. Cold, emotionless logic that detached him from his patients. That way, he would not mourn their unavoidable losses or empathize too heavily with their pain.

He would do what needed to be done. Nothing more, nothing less. Those that let their emotions take over were not fit to be doctors.

At least, that’s what he believed.

He had had patients like you before. Smiling through the pain, friendly to your doctors and nurses, kind in a way that no one ought to be. He didn’t care. Not at first.

You were planning to stay for just a few days for a pretty invasive surgery on your leg. You wouldn’t be here long and he wasn’t the one doing surgery. Just giving you some updates here and there. The nurses took the most care of you.

He shouldn’t care at all- he never did. You were no one special… so why?

Why was he giving you more updates than anyone else? Checking on your health obsessively after the surgery? Glancing furtively at your room windows to make sure you were doing alright?

As your time in the hospital drew to a close, Shirabu found himself becoming more and more panicked. He’d never felt this stressed at work and, at first, he couldn’t place where this newfound fear was coming from. When he’d realized that it had to do with worrying about a patient, about you?

He was disgusted. Irrational behavior, irrational thoughts, just irrational.

That wasn’t who Shirabu Kenjiro was! He was as rational and capable as they came!

But when it came to you, he was never really himself, was he?

On your last night, he’d pumped you full of pain and sleeping medication so you wouldn’t feel a thing. A scalpel was all he needed to insure you stayed longer.

“It’s rare for scars to split open like that, I’ll have to talk to the surgeon,” he’d say, come morning, “We don’t want it to become infected, so you’ll have to stay here so we can monitor you.”

But that would only keep you here for so long, wouldn’t it? He needed to look at your files, find out where you lived and everything he could before he let you go.

People got sick from hospitals all the time, didn’t they? He could keep you longer that way… but he couldn’t risk endangering your life.

A few clicks at the computer was all it took to get your address. He’d drive by after work, break in if it was empty.

He could hear your assigned nurse fussing over the incision in your leg, see her finally heading towards him to report what she’d found.

You looked so nervous, but he knew you’d understand. You’d smile and thank him for doing his job.

You’d thank him for being selfish and hurting you to keep you near him as long as possible.

Isn’t that illogical?

[killed-by-choice]

Kamala Reddy, 31 (USA 1975)

Kamala Reddy, who had four young children at home, went to Sigma Reproductive Health Center Inc. on November 28, 1975. This abortion facility was owned and operated by Sigma Centers of America Incorporated. The abortionist was Vibhakar J. Mody, who was paid by the number of abortions he carried out.

Both Kamala and her husband G. Pulla signed the consent forms for the surgical abortion. Mr. Reddy stated that his wife had never had any known complications from giving birth to four children, and had never had a severe reaction to any anesthetic to his knowledge. Her only known allergy was to a drug called sulfa, which she indicated on the paperwork.

Before beginning the abortion, Mody gave Kamala a local anesthetic. Kamala suffered what a later lawsuit called a “violent reaction” and had to be hospitalized at Washington Adventist Hospital. She died in the hospital the next day.

Kamala’s family sued for her death. During the court proceedings, both the abortionist and a nurse from the facility claimed that Kamala had known about a reaction to the drugs used and hadn’t disclosed them. Their only basis for this claim was a brief alleged conversation that only they had been witness to. They stated that while under the influence of the drug causing the reaction, Kamala had told them she did not feel well and, when prompted, gave a vague confirmation of a reaction in the past. Neither testimony stated that Kamala specified any specific adverse history to that drug. Despite the Reddy family’s attorney arguing that she was not a component witness, the alleged conversation was accepted as evidence. However, it was later found that accepting the story into evidence was in error, and the judgement was remanded for a new trial.

"United States, Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VMY1-G2V : 8 January 2021), Kamala Reddy, Nov 1975; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

[imsorryimlate]

back when we were doing dracula daily, someone posted something about how van helsing was both a lawyer and a doctor, and i was like “?? but jack is also both?”, but when i tried to find support for this idea of mine, i couldn’t find it. eventually i resigned myself to it being something i had dreamt.

but then!! i was again rereading the october 1st passage, where renfield says:

[…] I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances.

and this is where i had gotten the idea, i think. but a medico-jurist is not a lawyer, which i had assumed because of the word jurist. no, a medico-jurist is, as the name implies, someone who’s involved in medical jurisprudence.

from wikipedia (awkwardly abridged for convenience):

Medical jurisprudence or legal medicine is the branch of science and medicine involving the study and application of scientific and medical knowledge to legal problems, such as inquests, and in the field of law. […] medicolegal cases involving death, rape, paternity, etc. require a medical practitioner to produce evidence and appear as an expert witness, […] Medical jurisprudence includes […] questions of competence or sanity in civil or criminal proceedings.

(emphasis mine)

so… our boy jack is out here giving expert witness testimonies in court?

now, i will admit to being someone who’s interested in true crime, and historical cases are always of interest because of the continuous evolution of forensic science and the shifting ideas around diminished responsibility. looking at the late 18th century and the 19th century, there are two points of interest regarding cases in the uk where defendants were found not guilty by reason of insanity:

1. a lot of them where kept at bethlam or broadmoor, famous mental hospitals

2. a lot of the expert witnesses were doctors and superintendents at bethlam or broadmoor, or at times at private asylums

some names that pop up a lot are:

william orange (superintendent at broadmoor)

sir william charles wood (superintendent at colney hatch, with its own connection to seward, later at bethlem)

edward monro (doctor at bethlem, appeared as an expert witness up to around 400 times!)

sir alexander morison (doctor at bethlem)

forbes winslow (owner of his own private asylums, also funniest middle name ever: benignus)

i’m not gonna ascribe nefarious motives to these doctors (especially dr. winslow because he seems to have been a pretty good guy who was “cutting-edge” by treating his patients humanely uhhh) but i still think there was a lot of potential for a conflict of interest, which is why i pointed out their professional positions.

but there is one doctor i will ascribe possible nefarious motives to: our dear doctor jack seward.

i know i’m not the only one who thinks that he was “saved” by the narrative in that in gave him a purpose and a stronger anchoring to his friends (both old and new). considering his opening entry, where he’s like “of course i wouldn’t experiment on renfield, that would be unethical and send me to hell…. but what if?? 👀” like, this guy… this guy!! i say this with love, but he’s primed for becoming an evil scientist.

i don’t think he would have done it when we meet him in the novel, or afterwards when he’s been through the whole adventure/mission – but if the events of dracula hadn’t happened, i could definitely see him descending deeper into self-justified malpractice, by which i mean he’d testify that accused criminals are insane just to get his hands on them, to be able to study them.

but aside from my speculation about that^ i also wonder if perhaps he’s well on his way to becoming an eminent expert witness when we meet him in the book. by renfield’s words, it would seem that he has been involved in an inquest or legal case at least once (but probably more if he’s going to claim the title medico-jurist). we all wonder sometimes how a 29 year old doctor came to have an immense lunatic asylum under his care, but honestly, some of these trials were huge, and expert witnesses could rise to some prominence and gain benefactors that way (just like they do today).

and who knows, maybe jack got his foot in the courtroom door via his lordling friend arthur, which would allow him to establish himself as a medical expert despite being young and (presumably) recently graduated.