Dive Brief:
- A suspect identified as Stephen Pasceri entered Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston on Tuesday morning and after asking for a physician by name, shot the doctor before being found dead of what is believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
- The physician, cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Michael J. Davidson, died after being rushed the emergency room. It is believed that the suspect "had some issue" with the hospital's treatment of his mother, who died November 15. "There was a particular reason he targeted this doctor," Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said.
- Police arrived on the scene "within seconds," according to Evans. The weapon was recovered and the department tweeted within an hour of the 911 call that the "situation [was] under control." BWH does not have metal detectors installed.
Dive Insight:
This latest tragic incident of hospital violence gives even more ammunition to advocates of in-house police at hospitals. So far, Indiana University Health La Porte Hospital has sworn in five officers for their new department, according to The Times of Northwest Indiana. In addition, WANE News Channel 15 reported last September that Indiana's Parkview Hospital hired 19 new officers. Indiana's Fox 28also reported South Bend's Memorial Hospital formed its police department last August after Indiana became the 29th state to make it legal for hospitals to form their own police departments. Ohio also got on the radar when Adena Regional Medical Center formed its police department, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.
The numbers are there to provide justification for such a move, although there are some concerns about liability and whether law enforcement is equipped to manage patients with mental health issues or grief-stricken family members. Still, healthcare workers experience the most nonfatal workplace violence compared to other professions by a wide margin, with attacks on them accounting for almost 70% of all nonfatal workplace assaults causing days away from work, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported by Scientific American. In a 2014 survey, nearly 80% of nurses reported being attacked on the job within the past year.
Want to read more? You may want to read this story about active shooters and other violence: How hospitals should prepare or this story about the downside of hospital-based police.
Updated to include the names of the involved parties and the death of Dr. Davidson.