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A knife that could take a leg in thirty seconds, a theater packed with spectators, and a patient who never got a say—our journey begins with Robert Liston, the unrivaled speed surgeon of the nineteenth century. From there we follow the messy, gripping path from pain-as-proof to consent-as-right, revealing how anesthesia muted screams without restoring voice, and how courts, scandals, and patient advocates forced medicine to listen.

If this conversation challenged your thinking, share it with someone facing a medical decision, subscribe for more deep dives, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: what would you want disclosed before any operation?
References

1. Liston, Robert. Practical Surgery. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1837.
2. Lister, Joseph. “On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery.” The Lancet 90, no. 2299 (1867): 353–356.
3. Dickens, Charles. Household Words. Vol. 1, 1850. (Contains Dickens’s descriptions of Victorian surgical observation).
4. Wakley, Thomas. The Lancet, 1823–1850 editorial campaigns against surgical exploitation and hospital abuses.
5. Morton, W. T. G., and J. C. Warren. “First Public Demonstration of Ether Anesthesia.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 35 (1846): 309–317.
6. Percival, Thomas. Medical Ethics; or, A Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons. Manchester: S. Russell, 1803.
7. Historical and Academic Texts
8. Porter, Roy. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
9. Loudon, Irvine. Medical Care and the General Practitioner 1750–1850. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
10. Stanley, Liz. The Industrial Revolution and the Body: Labor, Injury, and Anatomy. London: Routledge, 2001.
11. Pernick, Martin S. A Calculus of Suffering: Pain, Professionalism, and Anesthesia in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
12. Duffin, Jacalyn. Histor

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The scariest villains don’t lurk in shadows; they wear scrubs, speak softly, and learn your child’s name. We return to the Beverly Allitt case and follow the tight trail from confusion to certainty: unexplained pediatric collapses, careful interviews, and the lab result that cracked it open—insulin present with no C peptide, a forensic fingerprint of injection. That single biochemical detail reframed the entire investigation, linking opportunity, access, and intention in a way charm couldn’t erase.

Between the hard chapters, we keep space for the human side of care—a “chart note” on engineered gut bacteria that could reduce kidney stones, a quick laugh from a translation mishap that reminds us why presence matters more than devices, and two sponsor spotlights aimed at real-life needs. Through it all, we hold to one theme: trust is fragile. Safeguards—from key control to documentation and lab literacy—aren’t red tape; they are the rails that keep patients safe when charisma tries to derail the truth.

If this story made you think differently about evidence, motive, or safety in care, help us keep these conversations going. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth, share the episode with a friend, and leave a five-star review to bring more curious listeners into the community. Your voice helps build a safer, smarter healthcare culture.

Resources: 

Reuters Chart Note 

Wiki

Washington Post  

www.thefamouspeople.com

Crime Library  

www.biography.com 

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Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

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The scariest villains don’t lurk in shadows; they wear scrubs, speak softly, and learn your child’s name. We return to the Beverly Allitt case and follow the tight trail from confusion to certainty: unexplained pediatric collapses, careful interviews, and the lab result that cracked it open—insulin present with no C peptide, a forensic fingerprint of injection. That single biochemical detail reframed the entire investigation, linking opportunity, access, and intention in a way charm couldn’t erase.

Between the hard chapters, we keep space for the human side of care—a “chart note” on engineered gut bacteria that could reduce kidney stones, a quick laugh from a translation mishap that reminds us why presence matters more than devices, and two sponsor spotlights aimed at real-life needs. Through it all, we hold to one theme: trust is fragile. Safeguards—from key control to documentation and lab literacy—aren’t red tape; they are the rails that keep patients safe when charisma tries to derail the truth.

If this story made you think differently about evidence, motive, or safety in care, help us keep these conversations going. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth, share the episode with a friend, and leave a five-star review to bring more curious listeners into the community. Your voice helps build a safer, smarter healthcare culture.

Resources: 

Reuters Chart Note 

Wiki

Washington Post  

www.thefamouspeople.com

Crime Library  

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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A bright Children’s Ward. A reassuring nurse. Then a surge of cardiac arrests, hypoglycemia, and near-fatal collapses that no one could neatly explain. We step inside Grantham and Casteven Hospitals in the early ’90s to trace how a pattern of harm unfolded in plain sight—and how a trusted caregiver leveraged chaos, night shifts, and parental trust to stay close to the sickest children.

Listen now for a careful, victim-centered retelling that honors families, examines systemic gaps, and sets the stage for part two’s legal and forensic outcomes. If this story moved you, share it with a friend, follow the show, and leave a review—your support helps more people find thoughtful true-crime storytelling grounded in healthcare and accountability.

Resources: 

Reuters Chart Note 

Wiki

Washington Post  

www.thefamouspeople.com

Crime Library  

www.biography.com 

www.readersenjoyauthorsdreams.com 

​Murderpedia

www.famousbio.net  

BBC - Beverley Allitt Tapes 

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Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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A marble‑and‑steel clinic, an in‑office CT scanner, and a surgeon who promised fast fixes for every sinus woe—then a trail of lawsuits, a vanished yacht guest list, and a fugitive life in the Alps. We pull back the curtain on the “Nose Doc” saga with Shannon, a seasoned ENT PA who explains what ethical sinus care really looks like and how this case veered so far from it. From love‑bombed romance to a billboard‑driven patient pipeline, the story moves from glossy branding into the hard realities of missed diagnoses, unnecessary surgeries, and the scars—physical and emotional—that follow.

Resources: 

“Based on findings from the New England Journal of Medicine (November 2023) and the American Heart Association’s 2023 sessions, Zilebesiran — an investigational RNA-based therapy — showed sustained blood pressure reductions for up to six months after a single injection.” https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04936035

“The Runaway Doctor” January 2011 https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2011/1/the-runway-doctor

“Convicted ‘Runaway Doctor’ starts new life after prison, leaving former patient shocked” May 2021

https://www.nbcchicago.com/investigations/convicted-runaway-doctor-starts-new-life-after-prison-leaving-former-patient-shocked/2509943/

Dateline S29 E46: A Wanted Man, airdate May 14, 2021.  

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Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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A tailor’s back room, a bottle of “powder,” and a stack of insurance forms—our step-by-step tour of Philadelphia’s 1930s arsenic ring reveals how murder became a business, cloaked in folk magic and legitimized by paperwork. We start with a misdiagnosed “pneumonia,” follow the paper trail through forged signatures and overlapping policies, and watch a would-be hitman flip the script with the Secret Service. From sandbags meant to mimic brain hemorrhages to a spiritualist selling la fattura, the scheme preyed on fear, poverty, and the promise of a payout, turning neighbors into recruiters and grief into revenue.

Resources: 

https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2017/08/moments-history-poison-profit-philadelphia-arsenic-murder-cases 

https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/25642/25411 

https://vtuhr.org/articles/42/files/submission/proof/42-1-76-1-10-20171116.pdf 

https://billypenn.com/2023/05/28/pasta-arsenic-mass-murder-south-phillys-infamous-1930s-poison-ring/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_poison_ring 

https://news.medtronic.com/Medtronic-smart-study-pivotal-moment-in-womens-health-newsroom 

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Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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A panicked phone call, a birthday detour, and an orange tree set the stage for a darker question we can’t ignore: what happens when medicine bends to fame? We trace Michael Jackson’s path from Gary’s crowded rooms to global icon, then into the sleepless spiral that ended with propofol in a mansion and a 20-minute delay that medicine cannot forgive. 

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Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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A brake-slam on a country road sets the tone for an hour where trust, timing, and tiny choices change everything. We start with a heart-pounding near-miss and pivot into the disappearance of Gerald “Jerry” Rayborn—an 89-year-old father and WWII veteran whose caregiver, praised as an “angel,” quietly turned access into control and control into a financial and personal erasure. 

Resources: 

Times of San Diego

NBC San Diego

Case Law

Aleida Law

Cinemaholic

CBS 8 

Missing Persons Report       

Oxygen 

PMC 

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

Don't forget to check out these fantastic discounts using promo code STAYSUSPICIOUS from our sponsors at:

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What happens when the person you trust most with your life becomes your executioner? In this chilling episode, we unravel the disturbing case of Dr. Harold Shipman, the most prolific serial killer in modern history, whose medical license became his perfect disguise for murder.

Harold Shipman wasn't lurking in shadows or breaking into homes at night. He was a respected family doctor in the small English town of Hyde, invited into living rooms, offered cups of tea, and trusted implicitly by a community that never imagined their GP was systematically killing his patients. With at least 215 confirmed victims—though the true number may be closer to 250—Shipman's reign of terror lasted over two decades before anyone connected the dots.

Resources: 

The Doctor From Hell, by Genoveva Ortiz

Podcast Harold Shipman, on Killer Psyche by Candace De Long

BBC True Crime Documentary: Doctor Death-Harold Shipman (2018)

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

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When 24-year-old Michelle Herndon was found dead in her Gainesville home, nothing seemed immediately amiss. No signs of struggle, no forced entry – just a vibrant young woman inexplicably gone. But a single empty bathroom trash can would unravel a disturbing case of obsession, betrayal, and medical knowledge turned deadly.

This case stands as a haunting reminder of how specialized knowledge can become weaponized in the hands of someone with wounded pride and access to dangerous tools. After a trial presenting overwhelming evidence including DNA matches and traced hospital medications, O'Quinn received life without parole – justice served, though nothing could restore the bright life extinguished by his narcissistic revenge.

If this story resonates with you, please share it with others who appreciate true crime narratives that explore the darker intersections of medicine and human behavior. Subscribe to hear more stories where trust is broken in the most unexpected and devastating ways.

Resources: 

US Courts

Irish Times

Valdosta Daily Times

Irish Central 

Oxygen

Mystique Medium

Psychology Today

Irish Examiner 

Find A Grave 

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at [email protected]. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

Don't forget to check out these fantastic discounts using promo code STAYSUSPICIOUS from our sponsors at:

*thecuminclub.com for 30% off

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