Word: billig
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...prisoner was a victim of a "smear campaign" and trial tactics "that never should have been permitted." With those strong words, a Navy appeals court last week overturned the conviction of Commander Donal Billig, Bethesda Naval Hospital's chief heart surgeon, who was court-martialed in 1986 on charges of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide...
...controversial case that prompted congressional investigations into the quality of military heath care, Billig had been sentenced to four years in prison for "wrongfully" performing coronary-bypass surgery on three patients who later died. Prosecutors, the appeals court said, had unfairly portrayed the experienced doctor as a "bungling, one-eyed surgeon who should have known better than even to enter an operating room because of his past mistakes." The appeals court found that the Navy had not clearly established that incompetence or dereliction of duty caused the deaths. Moreover, Billig was not the primary surgeon during any of the procedures...
...recent years a number of studies and widely publicized malpractice suits ( have spotlighted the problem of medical incompetence and, particularly, the lack of disciplinary surveillance. The court-martial of Naval Surgeon Donal Billig earlier this year for involuntary manslaughter was a notorious case in point. Despite a record of having been fired by hospitals in two states, being legally blind in one eye and demonstrating skills that were described by a colleague as those of "a first-year resident," Billig had risen to be chief cardiac surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital, one of the nation's premier military medical centers...
...most coronary-bypass surgery, veins taken from a patient's leg must be deftly sewn to one or more of the heart's arteries, some no thicker than a straw. Last week a nine-member court-martial jury found that Commander Donal Billig, a Navy doctor and former chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital, had "wrongfully" performed that delicate operation. The result: two retired servicemen, Lieut. Colonel John Kas and Petty Officer Joe Estep, died in 1984 after Billig operated on them...
...Billig, 55, had been fired from two previous jobs and had not performed open-chest surgery in nearly six years before entering the Navy in 1982. He was found guilty on two counts of involuntary manslaughter, and on a lesser charge of negligent homicide in the case of retired Major William Frank Grubb, who died in 1984 after Billig performed bypass surgery on him. In addition, he was found guilty on 18 counts of dereliction of duty. Throughout his seven- week trial, the jury, which included three medical doctors and a nurse, took meticulous notes. Said one officer...