Customer Reviews

Demon Doctors: Physicians As Serial Killers

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This extremely well-researched and readable tome describes in detail the murderous careers of fifteen physicians ("physician" defined by the standard of the day) who turned out to be multiple-murdering (and also sometimes raping) sociopaths (my use of that last term). Author Iserson has a very readable style with great attention to detail (when he refers to dollar or UK Pound financial amounts in the past, he always even notes what that amount would be worth in 2002 US dollars!). His one indulgence (which he admits up front) is that, to introduce each chapter that's devoted to a given murderer, he has created a fictional one-to-two-page scenario that illustrates that individual performing one of his murders/tortures. Iserson cannot, of course, have known the exact details of any given event such as this, but he seems to do a good job of "setting the flavor" of the criminal and his/her actions through this literary device. This is a serious academic work, with good footnotes and references, and a decent index. I highly recommend this for anyone who's interssted in this somewhat bizarre (but not as rare as you might think!) phenomenon of "physicians who kill". (Unfortunately, the book is out of print, so can only be found in the used market, where it commands a fair-sized price.)

Demon Doctors: Physicians As Serial Killers by Kenneth V. Iserson (Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Arizona Bioethics Program, University of Arizona College of Medicine) is an informed and informative survey and study of physicians who became serial killers. Dr. Iverson addresses such critical questions as how doctors actually killed their patients, whether they share any common characteristics, and if there have been many physician-killers in history. The first volume in a planned series, Demon Doctors profiles eight of the most heinous physician mass murderers who violated the solemn oath to "do no harm" and exploited the patient-doctor relationship for their own nefarious ends. Demon Doctors is recommended for Medical History, Medical Ethics, and True Crime supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.