Customer Reviews

Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story Of A Doctor Who Got Away With Murder

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In most instances, writers put together a book about people and events in the past tense. James B. Stewart, though, soon realized after starting this book that he had become an active participant in a drama to stop a murderer from killing again. Stewart had a duty to put a stop to this terror. What might possibly motivate Dr. Swango? The doctor did not seem to financially benefit from these deaths. There is also no evidence whatsoever that Swango was prompted by any misguided humanitarian concerns. Dr. Swango's apparent only motivation is the psychopathic thrill of putting his fellow human beings to death. He seems indifferent and callous towards all suffering. There are strong suspicions that Swango even murdered his loyal wife. A court of law will likely convict Swango in the near future. The questions will still remain, however, concerning the scandalous behavior of the legal establishment that allowed this horror to continue long after it was obvious a serious problem existed.

I was morally and intellectually appalled by an earlier Amazon review by an anonymous "reader from Omaha, N.E.," a medical professional, who had the audacity to charge the author, James B. Stewart, with biased reporting. These comments should be read by all who are trying to understand how Dr. Swango was allowed to continue his criminal behavior for so many years. One should indeed take it for granted that the Dr. Swangos are the exception, not the rule. Most medical facilities probably would not have hired Dr, Swango after his conviction for poisoning his fellow co-workers. That's not the point. Once is enough. The disgrace is that there were not sufficient procedures in place nationally to prevent Dr. Swango from ever again practicing medicine. A single conviction of such magnitude should have ended the career of Dr. Swango in 1985. The following murders resulted from the gross arrogance and incompetence of a medical community concerned primarily in preserving its power and privileges. A democratic society must not allow professional establishments to protect their own regardless of the consequences upon the wider community. Lay people must not be excluded from directly overseeing the behavior of the professionals. The latter deserve respect, but not our unquestioning laissez faire toleration. The recent actions of the American Medical Association in preventing legislation to prevent a reoccurrence of another Dr. Swango is outrageous to say the least. The new motto for the AMA should be "We protect our own, and the general public should go to hell!"

Thank God James B. Stewart zealously pursued this story. The overwhelming probability is that without Stewart's efforts---Dr. Swango would still be killing patients. Many people owe their very lives to Stewart. It would also be sad if this book is merely perceived as a superbly written true story about a particular murderer. "Blind Eye" is also a disturbing commentary how power and cowardice corrupts professional groups who have forgotten that their first duty is to the general public, and not to their own membership.

"Blind Eye" is a very disturbing book. There were several times throughout the book that my stomach was literally in knots due to the overwhelming revulsion and shock that a man like Swango might become a free man this month and return as a member of our society. This is a man who upon his release from prison would most likely have no problem poisoning other individuals that he just doesn't like. Or even poison individuals he doesn't know, just because he can.

I've read all 62 reviews and what I find most interesting is that one of Stewart's themes in the book is how doctors protect their fellow doctors. Of these 62 reviews many of the one-star ratings are posted by individuals who work in the medical field, or are doctors themselves. The five-star reviews are mostly written by people that have no professional relationship to medicine. OBVIOUSLY Swango's situation is unique, and OBVIOUSLY not all hospitals cover-up their internal indiscretions. But what some reviewers seem to be missing is that the point of this book is not to slander the medical industry. "Blind Eye" is the story of a serial killer who happens to be a doctor. While it's unfortunate that several hospitals acted irresponsibly, hopefully this book will open the eyes of administrators who might implement stronger screening guideline and more honest investigations of internal affairs.

While I did not "enjoy" reading this book, I found it an incredible piece of investigative journalism. Stewart is an excellent writer and this is a very important book.

I read this investigative 314 page book in one sitting. If there's a lesson in it, it's that authority figures, such as doctors, suffer pride, envy, lust, just like the rest of us but unlike the rest of us, too often fail to acknowledge their fallibility. It highlights the patriarchal and sexist nature of the American medical profession which, like other parts of society, is not hermetically sealed off from that society. Example: the direct eye evidence of an elderly female patient counts for nothing; the evidence of nurses counts for little; the suppositions and the presumptions of doctors counts a great deal - and so a serial killer doctor continues to practice. Equally frightening is how a number of eminent and respected so called "scientists" of some very prestigious medical establishments chose Dr Michael Swango because they liked the look of him, because he seemed nice. To what extent did Dr Swango achieve his macabre goals because he was the picture of an energetic, white, clean cut, blue-eyed, blonde haired American ex-marine? (The author notes that staff at one mid-western hospital were relieved to find Dr Swango was "english speaking" so many "foreign doctors" had they through their portals).

Although I felt a little uneasy in the beginning of this book at what seemed to be the gossip like approach of the author, about who did or didn't like Michael Swango at school, whose favourite he was at home etc, the beginning serves to draw you in to his life through the eyes of friends acquaintances and relatives so that the real horror of his actions slowly dawns on the reader. In a state approaching disbelief you are witness to a horrible journey. Thanks to the American press and to patients such as Mrs Delbert Cooper Sr and to the author and to the nurses involved the mistakes made can be revealed, and discussed. A tad more humility by some doctors might have helped to prevent a lot of what happened in this story.

After having seen a segment about this person on TV, I ran out and got the book. I bought it the day after Thanksgiving and finished it the next night! I stayed up till all hours both nights. I just couldn't put it down. It was well written, no typos in it (great job!) and kept me interested from start to finish. I plan on reading more from this author and hope they are just as good. I am an avid reader of true crime and this is one more author to add to my list. Please come out with more like this one! Thank you for a great book and great entertainment!

Pat McCamy

I don't know who is worse. Is it the doctor, the subject of this book, an alleged murderer of 35 or more hospital patients, or is it the arrogantly stupid physicians who let him get away with it in not one, but at least five hospitals? Michael Swango is a licensed physician who seemingly has a compulsion to kill people. Possibly a narcissistic psychopath he evidently enjoys injecting poisonous substances into hospital patients, friends and co-workers. Slipping arsenic into the ice tea of fellow paramedics is what got him his first prison sentence.

He first started his alleged killing spree during a residency at Ohio State University Hospital. He evidently continued his bizarre activities after prison during residencies at the University of South Dakota, and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Why does a physician felon convicted of poisoning people continue to obtain medical residencies? Here's why. The physicians conducting the admissions programs are too incompetent to properly screen his application, even though he admits to being an ex convict. Then after patients die left and right, and nursing staff turn him in to the medical staff, the doctors refuse to believe their testimony. One key witness was a student nurse. It was quickly agreed by medical staff, as they all rolled their eyes, that no one should really accept what a student nurse has to say.

One doctor conducted an egregiously incompetent investigation of Dr. Swango's activities. Another was equally negligent in screening Dr. Swango's admission to a residency program. What punishment has been meted out to these two physicians? They both are now working for the Association of Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C. where they oversee the application process of all medical school residents in America. Isn't that wonderful?

Dr. Swango now moves on to work in African hospitals where the death toll continues to rise. Suspended from one hospital for his suspected murder of several patients, he secures another position at a hospital nearby while the police investigate charges against him. Returning to the USA he is arrested, tried and convicted on a fraud charge. He will be released from prison any day now, and presumably might join the medical staff at a hospital near you.

I normally don't read true-crime books, but, having spent my entire career in hospital management, the topic intrigued me. It reads like a thriller, and believe me the behavior of the doctors (excluding Dr. Swango) in the book didn't surprise me at all.

As a Medical Staff Coordinator for a large hosptial I first heard of this book through an annual conference. I ordered the book and found the accounts of Michael Swango completely disturbing. I work in a profession that is responsible for researching physicians and making sure that they never enter our medical establishment.

I have shared this book with my hospital administrators and Chief of Staff, it has become a required reading text for all incomming medical staff leadership.

Thanks to James Stewart for bringing this issue to the American Public, with this kind of publicity, Michael Swango will never practice medicine again.

In this lucid and riveting piece of non-fiction, author James Stewart turns over a rock, and out crawls Michael Swango - clean-cut, all-American physician and ostensible serial murderer. We follow Swango from his upbringing in a terminally dysfunctional family, through medical school at Southern Illinois University, on to (failed) specialty residencies at Ohio State University, the University of South Dakota, and the State University of New York, and finally to a bizarre stint as a practicing physician at two hospitals in the Republic of Zimbabwe. Beginning at OSU, he leaves behind a trail of dead patients and some very sick acquaintances, friends and lovers. No Dr. Kildare this, his favorite pharmaceuticals are the likes of arsenic, ricin, and cyanide. Despite the evidence, he has been convicted only twice - once for poisoning coworkers, none of whom died, and once for falsifying information on a residency application.

I have not been, nor will I ever be, a fan of the "true crime reporting" genre of books. Any minimally aware individual knows there are a lot of sociopathic, psychotic and otherwise dangerous people on the loose. It's the good luck of most of us not to run into any in the course of a lifetime. It doesn't add to the pleasures of my life to read about them, and will usually only do so if their impact on real-life history has been disproportionately great. Therefore, I confess to an occasional fascination with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. (And the villains in the fictional works I enjoy generally get a satisfying comeuppance.) Personally, I found "Blind Eye", though admirably written, to be frustrating and infuriating. Infuriating because it shows how Swango breached the barriers supposedly set up to protect society at large, with the help, in this case, of a particularly spineless, arrogant and self-serving group of physician-administrator weasels at the OSU Medical Center. Frustrating because Swango has yet to brought to justice for murder, mostly because of the difficulties in garnering evidence that will support indictments for crimes committed many years ago, or in a foreign country, by methods that leave nebulous traces at best. Currently serving a federal prison term for fraud, he is due for release no later than July 2000. The author feels he will certainly try to practice "medicine" again - somewhere. It should give the reader pause to consider where that might be. (Been looking for a new family doctor lately? Hmmm?)

In a reasonable society, a solid citizen would not be condemned for shooting a mad dog on sight. Michael Swango is one twisted, sick puppy. Unfortunately, we don't live in a society that is always reasonable.

If this were a novel I would probably not have finished it, if I had I would have dismissed it with one star and as much sarcasm about an incompetent author I could think of. The horror is that this book documents a serial killer who killed his victims in hospitals around The United States and overseas. He killed these people, many who were his own patients, and others because they were convenient. He killed because it allowed him to act out his fantasies and because he enjoyed committing murder. And at least part of his thrill was that he knew that the system of which he was a part would go out of its way to rationalize or knowingly deny the truth. And it was this mentality that lead him from state to state killing as he went.

This book is so disturbing because of the scope and the number of parties who allowed this killer to continue to kill. If these crimes had been committed in one hospital a finger could be pointed and those responsible punished. But he worked his way through Illinois, Ohio State University Hospitals, South Dakota, New York, Zimbabwe, and finally back to the US when he was arrested. He was not arrested for murder, and at the time he was caught he was passing through to his next job in Saudi Arabia.

The string of events and the years they occupy will leave you shaking your head. This man poisoned 6 coworkers and was sent to prison, this little event did not even slow him down when pursuing his next hospital post. You will even read of at least one member of the medical community that said even with this conviction they would still hire this man. And the truth is many more than one employer did. And many of those who could have stopped this person very early on remain in their professions today, and many of them hold positions of much greater authority.

How can this happen? The observations of nurses need to be dismissed along with victims who survived this serial killer together with roommates that witnessed his actions. Those in the hospital administration need to refuse to cooperate with investigators, and they must put their potential liability ahead of the bodies this man left in his wake. The process is simple; discredit anyone who may have something damaging to say, whine about how hard it is to prove a murder when effected by a doctor, and then write endorsements and recommendations of the killer that will not raise an eyebrow with the next employer. The goal is to push the guy out of your hospital without the killer or his victims suing, and then let the next hospital deal with him.

This guy is now serving three consecutive life sentences. This number is at least several dozen short of the number he killed. That he was finally charged and convicted had precious little to do with the hospitals he worked at. From what I was able to find he was convicted of murder at a Veteran's Administration Hospital, which would find it much harder to ignore the Federal Government.

At a minimum there are a dozen or so cells that should be occupied by other doctors and a string of hospital administrators. To that group can be added some members of the boards of doctors who are supposed to discipline their own, and not a few members of congress that ensure that tracking and documenting the histories of those we entrust are lives to remain vague and poorly documented.

This is the story of how a doctor convicted of poisoning 6 of his coworkers at an ambulance service managed to get job after job as a physician. And how he subsequently murdered up to 60 patients due to the incompetence, arrogance, and corruption of the medical institutions and physicians involved. The laxness of the application and interview process at some of the most prestigious institutions in the U.S. is exposed. Every single time he was suspected of foul play, the institutions involved merely fired him, without any police involvement. I was shocked that nurses, patient family members and patients themselves witnessed Swango's misdeeds, yet weren't listed to because it was their word against a physician's.

When Swango moved on to kill in small hospitals in Zimbabwe, police officials were notified almost immediately by suspicious coworkers. The contrast between the quick action of the medical establishment in bush areas of Zimbabwe and the lying and covering up of U.S. establishments was startling.

The book tries to answer the question of why Swango killed and poisoned so many people. The book really has no conclusion other than he's a psycopath, which is probably about as good as anyone can understand this.

Swango was sentenced to life in prison yesterday. This book points out there may be other Swangos out there and that's really scary.

Stayed up til dawn to finish the book. The medicial establishment is not presented as being evil, but its culture _is_ shown to be often self-centered and self-serving.