:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/ArticleViewer.aspx?ArticleID=b3159483-905d-47e8-af60-fbe9e140dda3

 

Coroner releases surgeon's final note; hospital responds.

 

The Pulaski County coroner Tuesday officially ruled the death of noted pediatric heart surgeon Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb a suicide. The cause of death, said Coroner Mark Malcolm, was respiratory failure from drug and alcohol intoxication. An empty whiskey bottle was found by the doctor’s body in his West Little Rock home. The body contained Oxycodone, a painkiller. His blood alcohol level was .326, more than triple the level at which a person is considered legally intoxicated. The coroner’s ruling allowed release of copies of five pages of lined notebook paper on which Drummond-Webb scrawled final words in a hard-to-decipher hand. It was an often angry note and, as hospital officials had warned after his death, reflected frustration at some people with whom he worked at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Officials had described Drummond-Webb’s complaints as merely illustrative of his perfectionist nature and routine in the hospital setting. Some of the doctor’s remarks were intensely personal, but he didn't explain the ill feelings The doctor, who was said to be burdened by the small number of children he was unable to save in surgery despite performing hundreds of successful operations each year, declared in the early morning of Dec. 26: “Fuck the talent, every day my living hell!! These people don’t care! I have a gift to save babies The world is not ready for me.” He also told his wife, Lorraine LeBlanche, that he loved her and asked that he be cremated and placed in the bottom of a volcanic crater. After the note to his wife, Drummond-Webb writes: “I have taken my leave ciao!!!” He further instructs the coroner that he’s taken an overdose and that there is no need to “violate my body.” Drummond-Webb, an advocate of organ transplants, wasn’t able to be an organ donor in his own death because organs must be harvested while the donor is on life supports. The coroner's report said Drummond-Webb's body had words written on his right arm in ink -- "NO POST MORTEM" and "FUCK U." In often profane and barely legible handwriting, Drummond-Webb called one woman a “lying bitch,” called another doctor a “moron” who “will kill your kids” and referred to a doctor at UAMS, a specialist in another medical specialty, as a “charlatan” and an “asshole.” He didn't explain, though he said of one woman he named, "the deaths of children are on your head." He also wrote at one point, “We need to investigate capacity the system of Arkansas Children’s Hospital …” He didn't elaborate. The note was released Tuesday. Wednesday, a Children's Hospital spokesman said officials there would not take questions about the matter. It limited its comment to this prepared statement from Suzanne Patton, the director of communications: "Dr. Drummond-Webb was terribly intoxicated (over 4 times the legal limit for intoxication), distraught and suffering from depression when he wrote his final note. He was not the Jonathan Drummond-Webb we loved and respected. Had we known of his circumstances, measures would have been taken to ensure he received appropriate professional intervention. "He and the entire Heart Team achieved outstanding results for the children of Arkansas and beyond. The record speaks for itself. "It is useless to speculate on what prompted any of his specific statements. He was not himself when he wrote the note. “ Webb also told another person he described as his dear friend and teacher, “you would never operate like me, will never be able to.” There were a few rare kind words to his wife: “Lollie, I really love you.” But the South African native’s note was mostly unhappy: “This USA is stupid! … I am going home!!! To my mom and dad!” His parents are dead. Updated: 12/27/2004 In an interview for a 2003 cover story, pediatric heart surgeon Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb told the Arkansas Times' Leslie Newell Peacock that he’d “wanted to blow his head off” the previous year because of surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his hip and the complications that developed. He also said he was sure the cancer would return. An athlete, Drummond-Webb said he was inspired by cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. Drummond-Webb wore an Armstrong “Livestrong” bracelet to support the famed biker’s cancer foundation. Drummond-Webb took courage from his patients, too. “These kids save me," he told the Times. But Drummond-Webb's cancer wasn’t a fatal variety, and in any case he had recently received a clean bill of health, Dr. Jonathan Bates, chief executive officer at Arkansas Children’s Hospital,Christmas night, in the early hours of Dec. 26, Drummond-Webb went to his study, barricaded the door, and killed himself with an overdose of medicine. Just last week, Drummond-Webb had posed for a news photo with a teen-ager who would be going home for Christmas thanks to Drummond-Webb’s ground-breaking implant of a miniature heart pump that kept the teen alive until a heart transplant was possible. “This little kid is going to live to see the new year,” Bates said. “The irony is that he [Drummond-Webb] barely survives Christmas.” Bates, who read Drummond-Webb’s suicide note, now in the Pulaski County Coroner’s case file and not yet available to the public, said the surgeon “always saw the dark side.” He performed some 600 heart surgeries a year, including a dozen or so transplants, and had the lowest mortality rate of any pediatric surgeon in the country — about 2 percent. But instead of looking at that as 588 lives saved, Bates said, the surgeon saw it as 12 deaths. “He was constantly looking for anything that would change those odds.” In his note, Drummond-Webb expressed anger about things “that didn’t go perfectly around patient services and care.” “He was just incredibly frustrated at not being able to control and direct every tiny variable, every physician, every consulting professional, every nurse … to work the way he wanted.” Bates said Drummond-Webb, 45, a native of Johannesburg who’d worked at Arkansas Children’s Hospital since 2001, had endured a difficult childhood and that Christmas was an especially difficult time for him. “He coped with it privately,” Bates said. Drummond-Webb also told the Times that he coped with the pressure of his work by knowing that “whatever decision I’m making — that the decision is correct.” He added, “I don’t get out much. I need a break.” Bates lamented that “The sad story here is that nobody got it. Nobody had any idea that he was as desperate as he had to have been.” The hospital plans to hold a memorial service at 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 31, in Children’s Hall, in the former fellowship hall of Immanuel Baptist Church on Marshall Street. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb, a heart surgeon whose work was the focus of a four-part television series and who successfully implanted a life-saving miniature heart pump in a child, was found dead Sunday of a suicide. He was 45. Drummond-Webb took an overdose of medication and left a note for his wife, who discovered the body, according to Arkansas Children's Hospital. The hospital said friends believe the surgeon suffered a sudden bout of depression. Dr. Jonathan Bates, chief executive officer of Arkansas Children's Hospital, said Drummond-Webb worked tirelessly to save his patients. "Some would say they saved 98 out of 100," Bates said Sunday. "He looked at it and said I lost two out of 100." Child Heart Surgeon Drummond-Webb Dies (source: AP)   In 2002, Drummond-Webb said the only reason he allowed ABC's cameras to follow him around for the four-part series on its "Primetime" news show was to get the message out about organ donation. Earlier this week, the surgeon told The Associated Press: "This is a high-risk business. We see children walking out, we also see children who do not make it." make it."