When the Patient Is a V.I.P.

By Robert Klitzman, M.D.
NYT

Did Michael Jackson’s celebrity lead to substandard medical care?

Why didn’t the doctor just say no?

The Los Angeles chief medical examiner has ruled that Michael Jackson died from lethal amounts of the anesthetic propofol. Court documents suggest that the drug was administered by a doctor at Mr. Jackson’s request.

While an overdose may have killed Mr. Jackson, I would argue that he suffered from another serious health problem. It’s called V.I.P. syndrome.

V.I.P. syndrome occurs when a celebrity or otherwise well-connected “very important person” receives a level of care not available to the average patient. Unfortunately, V.I.P. care is not new or as rare as it should be.

The challenges of caring for very important patients has been chronicled in the medical literature, beginning in 1964 when a psychiatric journal reported that admitting an influential patient to an institution not only caused turmoil, but surprisingly, these patients did worse than those who received routine care. More recently, the medical journal Chest warned doctors to “beware of the V.I.P. syndrome,” which may cause them to second guess their normal decision making about a patient.

(More here.)