California doctor gets 30 years to life in landmark overdose case

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

A Southern California doctor was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison on Friday for over-prescribing drugs that caused the fatal overdose of three patients in a murder case capped by the first conviction of its kind in the United States.

The case against Dr. Hsiu Ying "Lisa" Tseng, 46, comes amid what public health officials describe as a national epidemic of drug abuse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the trend is fueling nearly 17,000 overdoes deaths annually, as well as a rise in heroin addiction.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury convicted Tseng, an osteopath who specialized in internal medicine, of three counts of second-degree murder after deliberating for nine days in October.

She was also found guilty of 19 counts of unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and one count of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-doctor-murder-idUSKCN0VE2E2

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World | Fri Feb 5, 2016 3:20pm EST
LOS ANGELES

[KentuckyWoman]

1. Expect people in pain to have a harder time obtaining treatment.

It was astonishing to me how hard it was for my father to get adequate pain management when dying of cancer. 15 years later and i am still angry about that.

No idea what all the details are in this case but you can bet the end result will be people left to suffer needlessly in pain.

[mhatrw]

4. Agreed. Terminal patients need to get the pain management medication they need.

Why there is so much concern about the problems of "addiction" among terminal patients is beyond me.

[cali]

12. It's not just terminal patients

I don't know what I'd do without opiates for pain control. Fortunately, my doctor knows I need it. I have severe chronic pain. And I've tried everything from spinal nerve blocks to medications like gabapentin and lyrics. Opiates help.

[Seeking Serenity]

11. You speak truth.

The millions of innocents must be sacrificed upon the altar of "the Drug War" to save the lives of a few thousands of dumbasses who lack the judgment and good sense God gave a turnip.

[madokie]

2. If it wasn't bad enough before

i'm sure it will get worse.

I have a serious problem that requires pain meds and it getting to where I'm looked like I'm a bad person just for this. No one and I mean no one is even aware I take them. I don't take two at a time or any of that, I don't give them away, I simply take one every six hours and have for at least 12 years now. I say no one knows. well let me tell you the story.

A couple years ago one of my older brothers, I'm (67 yo he was 74 yo,) anyway he fell and broke the knob off his femur so they did an operation and put a ball on the bone and sent him home. In a few days he went back to work and you can tell it hurts him. So one day myself, him and two of our other brothers were piddling on one of our projects, golf cart or something but anyway I said to my brother didn't your doctor give you pain meds for that and he said I don't want to start taking them, get all hooked and all that shit and I said I've been taking pain meds now for at least 10 years 4 times a 24 hour day and when they all got their jaws up off the shop floor they said in unison as if it was choreographed, I can't tell you do that, I wouldn't have ever even thought that, you don't act like you're messed up, you never act like you are high and I simply said its because I take them as prescribed. I'm btw the youngest of this 4 of us. We all have had family members or friends who got all messed up on pain meds at one time so its not like they live in a bubble or anything like that. My brother that broke his hip still doesn't take anything just barrells on through the day. Tough old bird.

His job is he works for a propane company and has for close to 50 years working on peoples stoves, air conditioners, heat pumps furnaces etc so its not like he has an easy job. He doesn't have to work but he says to me that this allows him to have the toys that he likes. He has a couple show cars, one a 56 ford pickup and the other a '70s for

the company he works for self insures and it never cost my brother a penny, never missed a pay check and he got first rate care at the top hospital, not a penny squeezed in his care. About 8 or 10 years ago he was riding his 4-wheeler and it flipped back over on him and broke his back. His sons who done the work on his show truck and car were all with him on their 4-wheelers and my brother knew he'd really fucked up so he told his sons not to touch him but rather go get first responders because they know what to do in a case like this to not cause him to be paralyzed or anything and thats what they did. anyways he was in the hospital for a couple weeks and was off work for a couple months for that and never had to spend a penny towards his care and never missed a pay check. The family he works for are like family to him, hell they are family to him. The kid you runs the company has known my brother for all his life. Any ways just wanted to tell you all this story and it got a little bigger than I intended when I started but just to show every one there are still good people in this world, good company's to work for and all that.

My brothers three son all have their own body shops and they surprised my brother with the 56 ford show stopper that he has a house full of trophies he's won with. Awesome family I have to say the least. I could go on and on but I have to go take a shower and get ready to go help celebrate a friends birthday tonight.
Love you all, Even though sometimes I'm a little cranky I appreciate all that you all have given me these last 10 or so years.

[KentuckyWoman]

10. I liked your post

Read every word. I'm sitting in the living room worrying over something I can't do anything about. Your post was just like someone here holding my hand letting me know it will all be OK.

Thank you. I just wanted you to know you touched my life.

[Aristus]

3. We just had to fire a nurse practitioner who was wildly overprescribing narcs and benzos.

We've had a tsunami-like overflow of his patients coming in to the clinic, wondering why he was fired, and angrily demanding all of the medications he had handed out so freely.

I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did. One of his patients who was routed to me was on four narcotics, including methadone and MS Contin, and two benzodiazipines. He wasn't practicing medicine; he was dealing. So his ass got launched; if there aren't going to be legal proceedings against him, I'll be very much surprised.

I had one of them come in to the clinic two days ago, stridently insisting he was suffering from pain at '100 on a scale of 1-10', and using the word 'fucking' like it was going out of style. All this, and his blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration were all within normal limits.

Nice of our ARNP to light all these bush fires we've had to put out...

[bermudat]

5. If heroin use among middle America is from insufficient narcotic use,

Expect it to go sky high now. Good luck finding a physician to treat
people with chronic pain, and good luck finding a physician to treat
you if your physician leaves the practice or area.

[mopinko]

6. am i the only one who notices that this doc is not a white male?

hmmmmmm.....

[youceyec]

7. yup

gotta teach those Asians their place.

[Reter]

8. Are you saying he was given a harsher sentence because he's Asian?

Are the jails unfairly over-populated with Asians?

[mopinko]

9. she

i would have no idea what the subset of doctors in jail would be. but i am thinking like all prison subsets, white males are the minority.