The Patient-Physician Relationship in the Context of Physician-Targeted Violence From the Perspective of a Medical Student

Abstract

The tragedy that transpired at a hospital in Tulsa, OK, in June of 2022 highlights the issue of physician-targeted violence in the United States.^1,2 The shooting in Tulsa had occurred after a patient, dissatisfied with their back pain despite it only being 2 weeks after spinal surgery, attacked one of the few Black orthopedic surgeons in America, Dr Preston Phillips.¹ Dr Phillips’ murder is not an isolated incident. In 2015, Dr Michael Davidson, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, was shot and murdered by the son of a patient that the surgeon had operated on the previous year.³ Dr Davidson had spent a significant portion of time answering questions from the disgruntled son who would eventually murder him. The 2 tragedies, separated by over 7 years, center around physician-targeted violence. Both surgeons had operated on a patient and were murdered as a result. Both cases beg the question: what went wrong, and how could they have been avoided?