This story is an exclusive on CNN, so it’s likely to be well sourced. When Joan Rivers went into the clinic for the endoscopy that ultimately led to her death, she was accompanied by her own physician, an ear, nose and throat specialist who has not been named. Prior reports claim that Joan’s physician was mistaken for her makeup artist, because she was not known to the clinic, was not authorized to perform surgery there, and was carrying a bag with her. According to CNN, when Joan was under sedation for a routine endoscopy, performed by a physician at the clinic, her accompanying physician decided to do a biopsy on Joan’s vocal cords that Joan had allegedly not pre-approved. During the biopsy, Joan’s vocal cords began to swell, cutting off her oxygen and causing the medical crisis from which she never recovered.
The cardiac arrest leading to Joan Rivers’ death happened as the comedian’s personal doctor began performing a biopsy on her vocal cords, a source close to the death investigation told CNN.
A staff member at Manhattan’s Yorkville Endoscopy clinic told investigators that the doctor, who has not been publicly identified, took a selfie photo in the procedure room while Rivers was under anesthesia, the source said.
Rivers, 81, was at the clinic for a scheduled endoscopy by another doctor, gastroenterologist Dr. Lawrence Cohen. That procedure, intended to help diagnose her hoarse voice and sore throat, involved the insertion of a camera down her throat.
After Cohen, the clinic’s medical director, finished his work, a biopsy was done on Rivers without her prior consent, according to the source.
An ear, nose and throat specialist not certified by the clinic as required by law performed a biopsy on her vocal cords. The doctor is described by the source as Rivers’ personal ear-nose-throat physician.
“Even though you are a licensed physician, you still should have, if you will, the checks and balances to get your approval to practice in that particular place,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
Investigators believe that Rivers’ vocal chords began to swell during the allegedly unauthorized biopsy, cutting off the flow of oxygen to her lungs, which led to cardiac arrest on the morning of August 29, the source said.
The fact that the doctor took a selfie in the operating room speaks to how blasé and unconcerned she was about her patient.
The clinic, Yorkville Endoscopy, has denied that a biopsy was performed on Joan. They issued a statement last week that “A biopsy of the vocal cords has never been performed at Yorkville Endoscopy. General anesthesia has never been administered at Yorkville Endoscopy. The type of sedation used at Yorkville Endoscopy is monitored anesthesia care. Our anesthesiologists utilize light to moderate sedation.”
Joan’s grieving daughter, Melissa, reportedly plans to sue over her mother’s death. Radar Online quotes a source who says “It’s become very clear to Melissa and experts she has spoken to that her mother didn’t have to die… [Melissa] She won’t be [suing] for the money. She wants to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
The doctor who performed the endoscopy is no longer practicing at the clinic. RIP Joan.
photo credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet
Appalling! Hope Melissa takes them to the cleaners.
I hope she gets that doctor’s license taken away. That is an inexcusable violation of Joan’s privacy, and the doctor’s cavalier attitude apparently contributed to or caused Joan’s death. Appalling is right. Disgusting.
Unreal. Absolutely disgusting.
And how was the doctor who wasn’t operating on Joan allowed near her to do a biopsy? Wouldn’t she have had to been scrubbed and prepped to do surgery? I guess all of this will be flushed out in depositions. Terrible.
IKR?! These are supposed to be professionals and we are putting our lives in their hands! *smh*
If any of this is true, everyone should be held responsible. The clinic, and all of the board, for putting the director in charge (who, clearly, was not qualified to make prudent medical decisions), the director, for allowing this f*ckery to take place, and the ENT for performing a non-emergency procedure without consent. Some people should lose their licenses, never mind paying a settlement.
At the very least the the doctor should go under review with a temporary suspension. I’m thinking in realistic terms. Joan’s vocal cords didn’t swell because of the selfie. And the monitors possibly didn’t show cause for concern when the selfie was taken. It just shows the doctor was being extremely unprofessional.
Good for Melissa. I’m sure she’s livid.
You’re right, GNAT. The sheer egregiousness of this transgression is such that this doctor no longer deserves the public trust and the title of doctor.
I would be hysterical right about now if I were Melissa, just falling out hysterical.
I hope she sues the doctor and the clinic. Everyone involved deserves to take a hit for this one.
The selfie is bad, but I’m far more appalled at someone performing a procedure with no consent, and apparently no privileges at the medical facility. Where were all the checks and balances for this kind of thing? Everyone in that room would have known how inappropriate and dangerous this was, and they definitely would have known this lady wasn’t supposed to operate.
I also hope she gets compensated, but then donates proceeds to a charity Joan would have supported, like an animal shelter or some kind of organization to help female comics get started in the business.
I believe she had a favourite charity – God’s Love We Deliver
Hideous.
This makes me sad and scared about what goes on in medicine. Poor Melissa. That doctor – isn’t getting informed consent prior to doing the procedure Doctor 101?
There’s a recent (2012) book called *When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests*, written by two doctors (Leanna Wen and Joshua Kosowsky). Read and be horrified. It’s a good book, well-written, easy to read…and horrifying. Aside from freaking you out utterly, though, it gives excellent advice for how not to be railroaded by your doctor.
Myself, I avoid MDs. I think that the changing medical landscape, one that is dominated by the interests of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, makes for a very unhealthy situation for the patient.
In addition, I am a student now in a Chinese medicine program and I’ve had my pre-clinical intern observations and am going to be in clinic treating after the new year. Well. In just two terms’ worth of observations I have already seen how people can have their lives ruined by surgery and then they are on their own. If the MD can’t figure out what is causing the pain and can’t throw a prescription at it, too bad for the patient. They come for acupuncture out of sheer desperation. It’s really something. The more I see it, the less I trust Western medicine. I realize that Chinese medicine can’t treat everything, and I know that there are times when Western medicine is better and should be privileged, but I no longer trust it at all based on what I’ve seen.
It is scary.
ITA. My son was treated horribly by medical professionals for years as we struggled to find out why he was so sick – everything from total apathy to assuming his symptoms were psychosomatic and I was contributing to them. We finally found an amazing MD – my son improved greatly under her care, but eventually we sort of stalled out in terms of improvements. We continue to see her, but we now also see a colleague of hers who practices Traditional Chinese Medicine. We’ve had some remarkable progress since starting TCM. I am so grateful for having found both doctors – it really is the best of both worlds!
That may be your experience but you are painting with a broad brush.
I see Western medicine used judiciously and professionally every day of the week to the benefit of everyone who visits the clinic with a concern.
There is a place for Complementary Medicine, but it is no replacement for a medical physician in most circumstances.
I worked in a hospital for 10 years. I’ve seen first hand the overblown egos, the condescension among staff, the crowded patient conditions as well as the very long shifts of medical personnel. I’ve seen so many in the industry become overwhelmed by stress and turn to alcohol or the readily available drugs leading to addiction. This is not an easy field of work and the folks practicing are utterly human. I’ve seen too many people look at doctors like they have the last word while not trusting their own intuition. Keep in mind always that these are people and therefore fallible. Educate and advocate for yourself. Your doctor should be your partner in health. It’s so sad that Joan trusted these folks who took an oath not to harm with her life and they failed her. I do hope Melissa sues them because these folks seem to have forgotten the grave seriousness of their jobs. I think selfies in a medical setting should be banned. That to me is a violation even if patient names are protected. My docs office won’t allow cell phone use.
@Springingforward: you are guilty of that of which you accuse me. Just because you “see Western medicine used judiciously and professionally every day of the week to the benefit of everyone who visits the clinic with a concern” does not mean that Western medicine is beneficial for all. You, too, are “painting with a broad brush.”
You are simply incorrect when you say that Western medicine “is no replacement for a medical physician in most circumstances.”
I admit to my bias, and it is a bias based on my own experience. My own poor history with Western medicine led me to Chinese. I have seen many others with the same trajectory; I am not unique in this.
Probably the most balanced on this thread is Konspiracytheory, who sees use of the two systems as being the best of both worlds. When I am a physician, I will have a network of functional medicine MDs and refer patients who need it to them. Just because I mistrust Western medicine doesn’t mean that patients don’t need an MD at times. I, though with great reluctance, use the service of an MD at times.
Western MDs know very well that Chinese medicine works. In fact, one of the brewing conflicts today is how MDs take weekend or online courses in dry needling and then tout themselves as “trained in acupuncture.” We are suing chiropractors in Texas for this, and throughout the country, acupuncture associations are launching their own suits in other states, in some cases against MDs.
More and more evidence-based research is coming out of China now because there is better funding for research now and greater ease of contact between Western and Chinese researchers. In the next decade or so, more and more proof of efficacy will be available in the English language, and more lawsuits will occur against MDs who think that they can do a weekend or an online and then say that they are “trained in acupuncture.”
I could go on and on, but I will leave this here: do you think that Melissa Rivers would say that “Western medicine [is] used judiciously and professionally every day of the week to the benefit of everyone who visits the clinic” where her mother died?
Both systems have their benefits and detriments.
That’s all.
Rivers was in excellent shape, had all of her marbles(whether or not I agreed with everything she said), and would have kept on working for several years if not longer. One can only hope that at least she wasn’t in pain during the whole ordeal.
A selfie Really? Joan’s family have been through so much. Someone really needs to be held accountable
This is really shocking. Still, the only reason I’d sue was to make sure I got to the bottom of what happened. Melissa doesn’t need the money, and a lawsuit eats up an enormous amount of time and energy.
Lawsuits are the only legal recourse when insufficient evidence of a crime precludes criminal charges. People love to dismiss lawsuits as driven by greed but this is how the system works.
This “doctor” needs to be taken to court at the very least. The truth of what happened to Joan during that endoscopy needs to come out. And the selfie – I have no words 👀
She should have been in a hospital for a biopsy of the throat, not at an outpatient clinic, ill-prepared for this reaction, which is not exactly rare. That’s one thing, but allowing an outsider, without vetting, without consent, who is not on staff, to perform a procedure, is insanity. Then treating a patient, who is under anesthesia, with such indignity as to take a damn selfie, really hits an incredible low.
I can imagine that Melissa must feel incensed. I know I would. All of the shoulda-coulda-wouldas would be plaguing me, along with grief.
Agree with all you said. Oh, poor Melissa. I would be in a rage, coupled with grief. Heartbreaking.
Yes, the way the whole thing unfolded sounds utterly mind boggling. I am livid so I can’t imagine how Melissa and her family must feel.
It sounds to me like the biopsy wasn’t even something the clinic does routinely. Endoscopy is a fairly routine, straightforward procedure – but that’s because it doesn’t actually DO anything, its merely a diagnostic tool. It sounds to me like this doctor simply went beyond the scope of what was supposed to be done and decided to do more. Sadly, that is not uncommon. I’ve met doctors with serious egos who think they can’t make errors. And the sad part is that it’s often super-hard to stop them. A part of me does believe that if this were not Joan Rivers, the family might never get justice.
‘Beyond the scope’…unintentional punning?
How frequently do gastroenterologists get involved with procedures on the larynx, anyway? I know it’s located within/near their specialty, but it has nothing to do with the digestive system, and this does seem more the purview of ENTs anyway. Everyone is so hyper-specialized.
Hope Melissa sues the pants off of them and when she wins, and she will, donates the money to Joan’s favorite charities.
@kiddo- sometimes acid reflux can cause irritation even up into the throat, so maybe that was the ENT’s involvement- checking that possible source out. As far as biopsy on vocal cords- it’s so weird to me, bec bef any type of procedure, there’s the litany you go thru- why you are there, what’s to be done, verifying who you are, etc. If a potential biopsy wasn’t included, wouldn’t the MD doing the endoscopy itself said ” Hold on a minute- what are you doing?”.
My question is, with medical professionals presumably all standing about while her throat closed up, why is it that a tracheotomy wasn’t performed? Would that have not saved her life, or am I just misinformed?
I think there was some BS in the initial reporting (as per usual). I clearly remember the first reports saying she didn’t have an airway until she got to the hospital. But more recent reports say she was already intubated when the ambulance showed up.
I have to wonder, though….
If Joan brought her “own” doctor to the office, and agreed to have her “own” doctor there while the clinic’s doctor did the endoscopy, it kind of sounds like her “own” doctor was there for an intended purpose. Perhaps Joan did agree to the biopsy or that if something was found during the endoscopy that she wanted her “own” doctor to handle it while she was under.
I’ve just never heard of bringing an additional doctor to the office when you are going to see another one.
Yep, thought the same below. She may have signed a consent ahead of time.
To do a procedure that the patient hasn’t explicitly agreed to while said patient is under anaesthesia is absolutely horrendous! Not to mention being severely severely frowned upon/highly illegal, right? I hope all the responsible parties get taken to the cleaners by Melissa.
Wait, what? A selfie? As in, the patient lying prone in the background, identifiable? Surely that can’t be right. I really really hope the selfie was just of herself, not of her patient as well. That is…unconscionable.
We were saying in another thread how we’ve warped ourselves about about “reality” and how to measure whether or not we’ve had an experience. Jesus.
I hope Melissa takes them to the cleaners as well. The whole ordeal, from an unauthorized biopsy, a selfie is completely unprofessional. And with Joan’s money, I can only imagine these were well credited physicians. I can’t wait until the whole story as to what went on comes out.
The dr took a selfie?? Good lord. I’m not big on suing but in this case I think Melissa should definitely go after these people, just to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and find out what the hell happened here.
I work in the medical field and consent is number one priority, you always triple check your paperwork and ask the patient multiple times if they understand their procedure before you do a thing. I also spend time in the OR and you wouldn’t believe what kind of shenanigans go on in there while patients are under. It’s mostly doctors being complete jerks to the staff, but I’ve heard some questionable comments about patients that made me uncomfortable. I hate going under for that reason!
Jess, interesting insights. My son had to go under for a procedure last year and as I was saying goodbye to him I sensed real tension between the doc performing the surgery and the anesthesiologist, they were sniping at each other about being late, etc. It was one more thing to worry about for me, wondering how that dynamic would affect their work on my son!
A lot of surgeons(especially here in the south) are egotistical jerks who get treated like gods in the hospital. They can be sweet as pie in office to their patients but once they get in the OR it’s a different story. I guarantee almost everyone in the medical field has been verbally abused by a dr at some point, and we prettymuch have to just sit back and take it. I don’t understand it at all, it’s also one of the reasons I want to change my profession, lol. I’ve heard it’s different away from the south, but who knows.
Hopefully everything turned out ok with your son! 🙂
Jess, thanks, everything was ok with my son but it was nerve wracking for sure. He was having a chest tube placed for severe pneumonia and it improved rapidly after that despite the pain from the tube.
Anyway, I’m in Chicago and I’m not sure things are better here. I used to go to a dermatologist who was so verbally abusive to her staff that I finally had to switch. The sad thing is she was really thorough and knowledgeable, at a top university hospital. But it was frightening to me how she could be so sweet to me and then in an instant just become a monster to her staff. I don’t how they handled working for her.
Surgeons vary greatly. They all have a great deal of arrogance and drive, otherwise they would never make it through training. I used to be a recovery room nurse, and they all had their little tics, but only a few were nightmares. There was one orthopedic surgeon who made the xray techs sprint from the OR back to xray – it was really startling because running usually mean a code. He also refused to talk to the family members of his patients, unless they were hand delivered to him outside the PACU door. One day, he looked at me and pointed to a pen. I said, “What does that finger mean, Dr. N? Does it mean please hand me that pen?” I shocked myself, but he actually laughed.
On the other hand, there are surgeons who are just wonderful. Everyone in medicine eventually sees a patient who “accidentally” gets a foreign object lodged in the butt. This surgeon, knowing it’s a comical situation, talked to us before surgery and asked us to be professional and allow the man his dignity. BUT, when the pathology report came back, that surgeon shared the fact that the “object was received in the on position”.
The problem is, I have found that more often than not, the excellent doctors have bland personalities, and the really crappy doctors have wonderful warm (fake) personalities and their patients adore them.
@Jess, reminds me of 1997 when I had surgery for a brain tumor in Houston. My neurosurgeon hugged me in the office, was extremely compassionate until after the surgery. While freaking out in recovery and later “on the floor,” I discovered the nurses were afraid to call after hours to get meds adjusted. Didn’t want to incur the great man’s wrath. Joan’s death will have some meaning as it calls into question millions of procedures now performed in outpatient clinics, and puts all doctors on notice about following SOP to the letter.
When I was a brand new night nurse, there was a doctor who was extremely difficult. I you called him, he would answer without speaking, and loudly breath into the phone. I once called him for a man who had fallen off an extension ladder. The man was in a great deal of pain. This doctor told me he does not want calls in the middle of the night, and if his patient didn’t like it, he could find a new doctor. Of course, I couldn’t tell the patient this. By the way, his patients adored him, and he was a local politician.
I agree with you Mayamae, they have to be driven to get anywhere in that field. It is funny how socially awkward some of them are, but that also makes sense because I imagine you’d have to be somewhat removed to be able to slice into human bodies and put them back together.
Thank you. I had an appendectomy last December and I was scared because I’ve worked in surgery. I was left wishing I was more ignorant of the process. But the staff did just as you mentioned and they were thorough and professional. That’s how it should be always!
WTF?! It is now horrifyingly clear that Joan Rivers was subjected to severe negligence… damn right she didn’t have to die!
I would be livid if I were Melissa. Beyond livid.
Let’s not even add that taking a selfie of that nature would be considered a massive HIPPA violation. Most doctors and hospitals are very careful to not ever let private medical info leak in any way, so that is pretty shocking.
Stars having private doctors is nothing new; but I think the issue here is that the doctor decided to do something without her consent. I wonder – did the doctor lie and state that she/he did have Joan’s consent? How exactly did this whole mess come about?
I wonder if, technically, the statement from the clinic was true, about the biopsy not taking place? Someone posted a link to a story which stated that insiders said she was injected with botox in her vocal chords.
Although a different scenario, it wouldn’t be any less appalling that this was carried out in a clinic, without consent, and done by a doctor who wasn’t vetted and approved prior to performing a procedure.
Why would anyone ever have botox injected into their vocal chords?
It is actually used therapeutically for some cases of laryngeal dystonia/dysphonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasmodic_dysphonia
It is not without risks because that injection can cause spasm as well.
Or maybe they simply dissembled- the biopsy was started but was never actually done because she couldn’t breathe; ergo, no actual biopsy happened.
Or they are parsing the wording very carefully for legal reasons. If the independent ENT did the biopsy, the statement that Yorkville did not do biopsies is technically accurate. But there has to be some reason to account for the director being asked to leave, or leaving on his own, outside of everything being on the up and up in that room and Joan simply dying of otherwise natural causes. KWIM?
True? or not true? I don’t know.
I am so horrified. I would be enraged. I am enraged. I cannot believe a doctor would take a selfie with an unconscious patient, and that another doctor/clinic allowed this during a procedure. And what happpend?! Did the ENT tell the GI doc “hey, let me do a biopsy real quick”? I work in medicine-all of this is highly illegal under the law. this place is going to be shut down.
I’m thinking there are some kind of bizarre extenuating circumstances, that make it no less ghastly, but maybe that the ENT got an informed consent prior, or something that deviates from standard practice, but covers his/her ass? Otherwise, it’s completely Wild West doctoring.
That’s what I was thinking. She was a comedian who did and said outrageous things. If this was her personal doctor, apparently on such familiar terms with her that the clinic personnel thought it was her friend or makeup artist, it’s not unthinkable that the doctor thought, “Hey, I’ll take a selfie with her while she’s under anesthesia–she’ll really get a laugh out of seeing this later.” It’s the same level of familiarity that seems to have caused Michael Jackson’s doctor to lose his sense of professionalism and cut corners in his job as Michael’s personal doctor.
I am so damn mad that these idiots ended Joan’s life years before it would have, I can only imagine how Melissa feels. Some say she was 81, what’s the big deal. The big deal is this woman was so full of life and energy and her mind was sharp as a razor. She obviously was no where near the end. And taking selfies while she lay there? Just incredible.
It’s so sad that we have to place so much trust in people who don’t necessarily deserve it. I am in no way anti doctor; I have wonderful physicians and a few doctor friends who set the bar high for the field with a holistic person approach. I’ve also worked with some awesome doctors. But it is scary to have to trust someone implicitly like that and hope they don’t take advantage of you, that they have your best interests at heart over their own, and that they are competent.
This story is outrageous.
I agree, it’s awful. I feel terrible for Melissa and Joan’s friends and family.
My friends had two family members pass away because of over medication during a hospital stay, one in early 40’s and one in 50’s, it was the hospitals fault and it’s sad because even if families win a lawsuit or hospital settles, it doesn’t bring back your loved one.
Doctor taking a selfie,what an idiot. Performing an unauthorised biopsy on an 81 year old woman without formulating an anaesthetic plan and management……obviously doesn’t know her job.
That is exactly why I am suing over my fathers avoidable death. I could care less in regards to the monetary side of the lawsuit, I want future patients to be aware of the careless mistakes the physician made while performing an outpatient, non-invasive surgery.
My thoughts and prayers are with Joan’s family. The death of loved one is never easy to cope with, but it makes it more difficult to wrap your mind and heart around it when your loved one passed away due to someone else’s negligence.
+1
It’s truly horrible. Sorry about your father.
I’ve really come to not trust hospitals these last few years. I’ve seen several friend lose love ones because of mistakes.
I am so sorry for your loss.
People don’t know. I was shocked when I started taking my pathology classes–there are a lot of things that Western medicine doesn’t know and can’t treat. Then I started observing in clinic and was shocked to see many patients have experiences like mine (bad) or even worse, unimaginably worse, with their Western doctor.
A lawsuit will tax your reserves but you are doing others a favor when you publicize things. The general public does need to know, and people need to have that awareness so they can be their own best advocates. It seems pretty clear that we can’t expect doctors to be our best advocates…some are wonderful, sure, but we can’t just expect it as a matter of course.
I wish you strength and fortune in your path ahead, and send you my sincere condolences for your losses.
And while the “doctor” was busy fooling around and acting star struck, his patient died. I hope this is the end of his “career”.
Some people have no soul! Now a days with easily accessible camera phones, people are losing their souls for stupid shit. This doc is one of those exceptions.
How sad and completely senseless.
How did this comment get through?
After students were posting photos with med school donated cadavers, a number of institutions decided to change policy in ethics classes. If it is abhorrent or disrespectful to post questionable photos of those no longer living, then more consideration should be given to those who are alive. Especially if those photos do not offer any instruction in anatomy, physiology, medical science and/or procedures. What happens in the hospital should not be distributed for entertainment purposes. It’s difficult to say the patients aren’t ID-ed if their faces are revealed, especially if they are famous.
That’s an interesting point Kiddo.
In my first human bio lab, females were told not to wear stiletto heels because it was disrespectful to the cadaver. Meanwhile, on the wall of the lab there was a large glossy photo of one of the med techs doing the “Alas, poor Yorick” pose with a human brain.
I studied genetics, not medicine, so I can’t say how the med students eventually behaved with patients, but it makes sense that their attitudes were influenced by what was deemed acceptable behaviour in the human bio labs – and for some odd reason, dumb-ass photographs were considered completely fine.
ETA: This post was not stand alone, it was in response to a comment. I wasn’t calling Joan a cadaver, she was presumably still alive when the selfie was taken, although I have no clue. Celebitchy makes me look like I am having non-sequitur conversations with myself. That does happen, but not in this circumstance.
I’m not sure who’s the biggest scum: O.J. Pistorius or this damn doc.
The practice of selfies in the OR or by any medical professional in a doctor’s office or hospital,needs to be stopped,period! This case was so tragic and sad…and this type of casual atmosphere breeds negligence. I hope Melissa sues for major bank. Money talks!
What a disgusting comment!
Wow, it’s very disappointing that any medical professionals need to come to a gossip blog to find out that the practices described are indeed, bad. Very bad.
It seems that the comment I was responding to was removed. It said that it was not uncommon for medical professionals to pose for selfies in ER and that this not really considered ” bad.”
Trying to comment on my post 31.
Geez. What’s the difference between taking a photo of yourself with that elephant you shot dead and taking one with a helpless, completely exposed human being, unconscious, completely vulnerable, and voiceless? There is none.
The doctor dehumanised Joan with that selfie and treated her like nothing but a TROPHY. There are no words for this sort of debasement, degradation and humiliation. I hope Melissa sues everyone to within an inch of their lives. There is so much wrong and unethical in this scenario that it makes me weep for humanity- we all may be at the mercy of these so called medical professionals. So much for the idea of doctors being ‘healers’. I would worry at them until something significant happens; they should be exposed, shunned and publicly shamed, since they won’t be losing their licences.
It’s such a violation.
Some of this story is ludicrous or missing parts. I believe the selfie and it’s horrifying. But how do you jump from thinking someone is her makeup artist to them being in your operating room doing a biopsy? It makes no sense. I will wait until a full and coherent detailing of events comes out.
On the one hand, I remember the juvenile behaviour of med students when I was at university so a dr taking a selfie in the OR doesn’t surprise me, BUT!!! You’d think they’d have outgrown such behaviour with time.