Docs Gone Wild – Terminal Gout Edition
It’s not like I don’t try a different schtick. I try to nail the absurd, dehumanizing aspects of this profession, as well as poke fingers in the eyes of the inconsistent and tweak the pious. But dammit, the Doctors Going Wild series keep pulling me back in. The maniacs and dumbasses sprinkled throughout medicine just keep coming.
Our latest winner hails from the upper Midwest, where I guess things get a little too boring to bear. Pharmacist Betty Bowman was working at the original Mayo Clinic in Minnesota “amid marital difficulties.” Sadly the lady checked into Mayo’s St. Mary’s Hospital “with stomach distress on Aug. 16 and died four days later.”
“Betty was suffering from gastrointestinal distress and dehydration, symptoms similar to food poisoning, when she was admitted to the hospital. Her condition worsened — with heart problems, fluid buildup in her lungs and the removal of part of her colon — before she died from organ failure.”
During the investigation, police learned that Bowman and her husband Dr. Connor Bowman had decided to pursue an “open” relationship, during which the husband developed an emotional relationship with another woman, spurring his wife to seek divorce. None of which has anything to do with dying horribly from multi-organ failure and likely secondary sepsis (unless of course it was suspected manslaughter stemming from a burned pot roast, which would make the husband an innocent victim). And if the couple were co-diddling on the side and were on the train to Splitsville, why should the cops care? Granted the sudden death of an otherwise healthy 32-year-old is odd, but …
Sometimes the equation is balanced with equal parts maniac and dumbass.
The new widower stated on social media that his wife had died of “hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH).” But the toxicology – they do that for 32-year-olds – revealed “29 ng/ml of colchicine was in her bloodstream at the time of death.” Which seemed odd in a patient with no gout history (and the therapeutic level I found is 0.5-3 ng/ml, making her level almost 1000% too high). So maybe she shared the same love I have for copious amounts of brisket and pulled pork washed down with beer, and was just colchicine loading?
But the nosy cops had to start asking around and learned:
- Betty had told friends that her husband was about $500,000 in debt.
- Connor told a friend that he stood to receive a $500,000 life insurance payout on his now-dead wife.
- Betty’s new paramour told police that he had been texting with her while she was at home drinking with her husband, when she texted that she didn’t feel well, attributing it to alcohol mixed in with a smoothie.
Oh, did I mention that Connor Bowman, MD worked in a poison control center? Law enforcement thought for some reason that seemed relevant and found:
- He had been looking up specifics about colchicine on his laptop, though no calls had come in to work regarding the drug.
- His internet search terms included “Internet browsing history: can it be used in court?” “delete Amazon history police,” and “police track package delivery.”
- Aaaaand Connor “looked up a journal used by medical professionals to search the lethality of different substances. He converted his wife’s weight to kilograms and multiplied it by 0.8 to determine the lethal dose of colchicine, per the affidavit.”
- Aaaand “after searching his electronic devices, detectives learned that Bowman used his medical credentials from working at a Kansas poison control center to access his wife’s electronic health information during her emergency department stay for suspected food poisoning. He also accessed her information a few days after she died, reviewing the medication she was administered, her reported allergies and an operating room log.”
I’m no lawyer, but do all of these points seem awfully circumstantial? Granted Connor Bowman’s sudden interest in colchicine BEFORE his wife’s demise from the drug seems beyond mere coincidence, but maybe all the weird internet search terms were for the crime novel he was no doubt writing.
I feel like I’m forgetting something, leaving something out. What alerted the cops?
Oh yeah. “An Olmsted County coroner reached out to police when Bowman asked that his wife be ‘cremated immediately’ after her four-day hospital stay and death on Aug. 20.”
Motive, opportunity, and murder weapon. Dr. Dipshit is currently being held for first-degree murder. Without that insurance payout to retain a top criminal defense lawyer, he might get a lot of time to spend writing that novel.
Wow
Hope he roasts.