1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
World’s Untold Stories: They Called Him Dr. Death Executive Producers: Mike McCarthy, Sheri England Producer: Bill Wunner Editor: Ashley Bateman
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
30-Oct-10
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Co-workers called him “Dr. Death.” And that’s how the world would come to know him as well. But it took three decades, and a shocking trail of mistakes, lawsuits, life-altering injuries and deaths that spanned the globe, for the real story of Dr. Jayant Patel to emerge. In June 2010, the former director of surgery at Australia’s Bundaberg Base Hospital was convicted of manslaughter, in connection with the deaths of three patients. A fourth patient was found to have suffered grievous bodily harm. But that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Australian authorities had linked Patel to many more deaths, accusing him of hundreds of botched procedures, unnecessary operations, misdiagnoses and conducting surgeries he wasn’t even qualified to perform. And perhaps most notably, he was accused of hiding his long history of similar complaints in the United States. He had been reprimanded, sued and accused of harming and carelessly killing patients long before he ever got to Australia. World’s Untold Stories follows the long trail that took Dr. Jayant Patel from the operating room to an Australian prison cell. Wherever he worked, colleagues had concerns, his co-workers complained, and patients died. And yet none of this stopped him from moving on to Australia and adding to his disturbing record – until a persistent nurse, a curious journalist and the weight of decades of accusations led to his downfall. We’ll examine the startling story, explore why no one stopped Patel years before, and ask what can be done to prevent another “Dr. Death” from emerging in the future.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Following formal disciplinary hearings, a public inquiry and a trial, the case against Dr. Patel was well-documented. The challenge was obtaining all of these documents, to ensure our story was accurate and defensible — as well as to illustrate visually, as part of the program, the “paper trail” on Patel that dated back decades. Some documents dating back to Patel’s early years in medicine, back in the early 1980’s, were available online; others were obtained by request from local and state authorities. The same was true of the most recent documents relating to the 2010 trial, which were available either online or obtained by request from state officials in Queensland, Australia. Of particular value was the Queensland Public Hospitals Commission of Inquiry’s website, which included its comprehensive final report, together with a slew of primary documents obtained during the inquiry — transcripts of witness testimony, patients’ charts and medical records, Patel’s application and resume, and numerous emails, letters, internal hospital communications and other documents that shed light on Dr. Patel’s time at the Bundaberg hospital.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
In telling the story of a man who affected so many hundreds of lives, the challenge was who “not” to talk to. The story could easily have been overwhelmed by the number of voices telling it. So we reached out to more people than we actually interviewed, and we interviewed more people than we actually included in the program, as part of an effort to narrow down the on-camera voices to the most important and insightful. The key human sources were those closest to the story — those who, in fact, broke the story. Newspaper journalist Hedley Thomas and nurse Toni Hoffman were among the first to sound the alarm about Dr. Patel’s work in Bundaberg. Other key players included Beryl Crosby, the self-appointed advocate for Patel victims; Judy Kemps, one of the most vocal of the Patel victims’ relatives; and Anthony Morris, who headed up the original commission of inquiry into the matter. Finally, the retired former Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, had fortuitously relocated to North Carolina, not far from CNN headquarters in Atlanta, so we took advantage of the proximity and his availability, to include the then-head of government’s perspective on the matter. Their voices, and their stories, allowed us to tell the tale of Dr. Patel in the words of the people who knew his story best — without any reporter narration. And, it must be said, we made repeated requests to speak with Dr. Patel and his attorneys, we reached out to his relatives in India, we spoke with his wife in Oregon, and contacted authorities at the Bundaberg Base Hospital, but none would agree to comment on camera.
6. Results (if any).
The investigation and trial of Dr. Patel was well-covered in the Australian media, and got international attention as well, including some coverage on CNN. But the 2010 verdict presented us with the opportunity to tell the full story, from beginning to end, for those who had only heard parts, if any, of the story in the years since it first broke. Each of the interviewees contacted us after the airing, to commend us for our efforts and for accurately and fairly presenting and interweaving their stories. And viewers were made aware of the potential failures and loopholes in the system, which could encourage them to be more vigilant about researching, questioning, and challenging when necessary, their own health care providers.
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
We made a thorough effort to document every detail, and limited much of the discussion on the program to those cases that were examined in the commission of inquiry report, or that came up in the trial. Patel was accused of harming hundreds of patients in Australia and the U.S., but was only convicted of harming four — so we had to balance the desire to illustrate the widespread scale of his malpractice, with the responsibility to not accuse him of anything he wasn’t actually convicted of. No one has challenged any of our report, nor have we needed to make any corrections. We ended the program with the news that Patel was appealing his convictions. His appeal is still pending.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
In detailing what was a case of widespread and long-lasting malpractice, this was both a legal and a medical story. But it was ultimately a human story — about the people whose lives were affected, the people who allowed it to happen, and the person who was eventually held responsible for his actions. So key to humanizing the story was to explain the medical mistakes, without overwhelming the viewer with medical jargon and details, and to discuss the legal case, without getting bogged down in the language of lawyerese. What we wanted the viewer to take away from this, was the knowledge that this could happen anywhere, to anyone, and it’s up to all of us to be careful and ask questions about our own health care. The interviewees had such strong stories to tell, and such detailed knowledge of the case, that we decided before shooting that we would aim to produce this without any reporter narration — the story would best be told by those who knew it best. This is the kind of decision that’s easier to make before shooting, than after — you have to know what key pieces of information you need to include in your final program, in order to know to ask your interviewees the appropriate questions (even simple questions like “Who is Dr. Patel?” or “What is Bundaberg like?” can evoke answers that prove very useful in a reporterless program.) It’s easy to add a line of reporter narration, but not easy to go back and reask a question when you discover in your scripting and editing that you’re missing a key piece of information — so thoroughness in asking questions and getting the answers you need, is key. And, especially in a program dealing with a legal case, it’s important to be extra careful not to allow the interviewees to make any unsubstantiated allegations — just because “they said it, not us”, doesn’t absolve us from responsibility for what we air. We fact-checked everything the interviewees said, and eliminated incorrect or misleading statements, to ensure our story was in line with the story told in the official investigation and trial.