Lawsuits Against Fugitive Doc Can Proceed; Nurse Who Gave Fake Vax Walks Free

— A weekly roundup of healthcare's encounters with the courts

by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, �鶹��ý December 8, 2022

Legal Break over a blindfolded Lady Justice statue holding scales.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that lawsuits filed by about 100 former patients against fugitive spine surgeon Abubakar Atiq Durrani, MD, . Durrani, who fled to Pakistan in 2013, is accused of performing negligent and unnecessary back surgeries. (FOX19)

A Texas man, Matthew Jordan Lindner, was arrested on charges that he left a voice mail who provides gender-affirming care. (AP)

An Indiana judge for an injunction to block the Indiana attorney general's investigation into an abortion she performed on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio. (CBS News)

A nurse in Germany who gave thousands of elderly people saline instead of a COVID-19 vaccine was sentenced to . (Daily Mail)

Also in Germany, a hospitalized patient was arrested after she allegedly because it was too noisy -- twice. (CNN)

A federal judge in San Diego in a lawsuit where the plaintiff alleged she was given an emergency C-section without anesthesia. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Julia Kidd, RN, filed a lawsuit against University Medical Center in Las Vegas, claiming she was due to her Pagan beliefs. (8 News Now)

Former New York surgeon Spyros Panos, MD, who was released from prison in March 2017, -- this time to 9 years in prison, along with 3 years of supervision for healthcare fraud. (Poughkeepsie Journal)

Former Alabama doctor D'livro Lemat Beauchamp, MD, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in a scheme to . Beauchamp wrote more than 1,600 illegal prescriptions, for which he received $350 each, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

New York physician Noel Smith, MD, was . Prosecutors claim he wrote prescriptions for pills, including opioids and dextroamphetamine/amphetamine (Adderall), for five men who then sold the drugs on the streets of Staten Island. (New York Post)

Michigan physician Victor Savinov, MD, will pay $50,000 to settle charges -- in the form of a credit card payment, free office space, and free use of a medical assistant -- in exchange for referring Medicare patients to home health agencies, according to the DOJ.

Kristina Fiore leads MedPage’s enterprise & investigative reporting team. She’s been a medical journalist for more than a decade and her work has been recognized by Barlett & Steele, AHCJ, SABEW, and others. Send story tips to k.fiore@medpagetoday.com.