Word: nork
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Horror stories like that of California's drug-popping Surgeon John Nork (TIME, Dec. 10), while mercifully rare, are not rare enough. Indeed, there is a broad spectrum of incompetent and unwarranted surgery. One reason for the spate of sterilizing hysterectomies and other dubious operations may be simply that there are too many surgeons. The U.S. has twice as many in proportion to population as Great Britain-and Americans undergo twice as many operations as Britons. Yet, on the average, they die younger...
Gonzales testified that he had gone to Nork in 1967 with spondylolisthesis, or forward slippage, of the fifth spinal vertebra. Often, this condition requires no treatment at all. Surgery is considered only if there are persistent troublesome symptoms. Nork recommended a lumbar laminectomy, an extremely delicate surgical procedure that involves removing a portion of a vertebra and fusing the adjacent vertebrae...
...Nork, who has already lost previous malpractice suits for $495,000 and $595,000, acknowledged that he had performed the operation badly. He also testified that the reason for his incompetence was his dependence from 1963 through 1970 on "uppers and downers." He popped stimulants to relieve the depression that followed an illness, then took tranquilizers to calm himself down. Somehow he kept his habit hidden from both his wife and the hospital personnel. He also confessed that he had lied in his two previous malpractice cases. He did so, he claimed, at the urging of attorneys for his insurance...
...well. Because his operations involved skeletal repair rather than removal of diseased organs, hospital pathologists had no indication that he was performing unnecessary surgery. In fact, in an inadvertent comment on the medical profession's ability - or willingness - to police itself, several colleagues testified at the trial that Nork had a fine reputation...
...human flesh," who performed unnecessary surgery and did it .badly "simply to line his pockets." He characterized the trial as "a Grand Guignol of medical horrors." He also criticized the hospital, which, he said, "has a duty to protect its patients from malpractice by members of its medical staff." Nork is under investigation by the state board of medical examiners, and action is being taken to revoke his license to practice. He also faces many more months in the courtroom. Some 30 suits, asking $20 million, are still pending against...