You know how, every year, you hear about a few crazy shoppers that get into a fight over some hard-to-find Christmas gifts? Well, this is medicine’s version: the surgeon who throws a tantrum in the OR when his medgadgets aren’t available.
This time it’s Dr. Federico Castro-Moure, a 45-year old neurosurgeon arrested Monday at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California after allegedly getting belligerent when he found out that hospital operating room did not have a proper tray of instruments for surgery. CBS News has the story:
Castro-Moure, the hospital’s chief of neurosurgery since 2002, allegedly became belligerent when nurses told him that instruments brought in from another medical facility had to be sterilized.
Eskridge said the deputies believed Castro-Moure was drunk, and two nurses told investigators they had smelled alcohol on the doctor’s breath.
Castro-Moure took two breath tests. Neither showed him to be intoxicated, but he had not blown into the device long enough for a proper reading, Eskridge said…It took three deputies to subdue the doctor.
Three deputies to subdue a neurosurgeon? This is a poor use of resources — all that’s really needed is one anesthesiologist with a ketamine dart.
Related: Abstract from Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine: Anesthetic Induction of Captive Tigers Using a Medetomidine-Ketamine Combination