NYC NOW - November 10, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

WNYC’s Michael Hill and Christopher Werth discuss the 5-part investigative podcast series “Imminent Danger: One Doctor and a Trail of Injured Women”.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre. Thanks for joining us as we observe Veterans Day. With some folks off for the holiday, we thought this would be a good time to remind you about our latest podcast series called Eminent Danger, one doctor in a trail of injured women. If you missed it, go back into our feed and check it out. The episode's dropped over the past five Saturdays. It's a five-part investigation into an OBGYN named Thomas J. Byrne. He was stripped of his medical license in New York in the early 90s after authorities determined that five babies were injured under his care.

Three of them died. But Byrne got his license back two decades later. For more on the series, my colleague Michael Hill spoke with WNYC's investigative editor, Christopher Worth. That conversation after the break. This final episode, focuses on New York's decision to restore this doctor's medical license. Tell us what you've learned. Yeah. So, I mean, just to recap, up to this point, we've laid out what caused New York to revoke this doctor's medical license. And, you know, he had been named as a defendant in 14

malpractice lawsuits after he left New York and went to practice in New Mexico and Oklahoma. But what that left us with was one really important question, which was why, given all of that, Did New York decide to allow Byrne to practice in the state again? We know, for example, that he started working at Harlem Hospital after his license was restored in 2014. And he was named in two malpractice suits for incidents there. So we requested Byrne's full applications for license restoration. The State Department of Education, which handles medical licensing, told us no. it's not part of the public record, but we did manage to get a 20-page summary of that application.

And your reporting found that summary said Byrne had gone on to practice in other states, quote, without incident after he left New York, right? Yeah, and it's, you know, it's difficult to understand that piece of this document that was, you know, just to be clear, it was generated by the licensing board. because as we know, there were multiple medical malpractice lawsuits filed against Byrne in those states. Now, you might say, well, doctors get sued all the time. That's not an indicator of a, you know, of a quote, incident, so to speak. But we were able to find other indicators that might raise concerns among a licensing board, including that Burns' hospital privileges had been temporarily suspended while he worked in Oklahoma and the fact that Oklahoma had initially denied his. his application for a medical license, which is on his file with the Federation of State Medical

Board. The series tells the stories of some of the families in New York who received care from Byrne before he lost his medical license back in 1991. How have they reacted to the fact that Byrne was able to regain that license here? Yeah, our reporter on this series, her name is Karen Chkirji, she spoke with several of the parents of those children, who you mentioned at the start of our conference. conversation. As you can probably imagine, the reaction is outrage. These parents, the fact that he lost his license, felt like a form of justice for them. And to give that license back, obviously,

creates a lot of complicated feelings for them. You brought a clip of one of those parents. Set this up forth. This is a man named John Henry's. Burn delivered his son, Matthew. It was 1989, the state's investigation into these births found that in Matthew's case, Byrne had used a vacuum extractor excessively. A vacuum extractor is a device that can be placed on a baby's head to assist in a delivery. But the state determined that Byrne had used it, quote, without indication. They also found he had used it excessively in his case. Matthew suffered serious brain damage among other injuries. So in this clip, John is describing his son's third birthday, you'll also hear Karen, our reporter in this. The day of his birthday, December 21st,

we had a cake and presents and locked into his room and soon a nurse holding him and the pager was going off and she said that he was in distress breathing. So on December 22nd, we made the decision, you know, if Matthew, you know, heart stop, don't do nothing, just let him go. But keep him on the ventilator, and then if he does pass, you know, then don't do nothing. And then he passed away on December 23rd, a 92. Two days after his birthday. Yep. two days before Christmas.

So I didn't want to go up. My dad told me that I needed to go up. I needed to hold my son. So I went up there, and I'm glad I did because I sat there and rocked Matthew for about an hour. John told me that after Matthew died, his relationship with his wife at the time really suffered. And she asked me why I keep going to the cemetery. And, you know, I couldn't even tell her why. You know, I just felt like I was abandoning him up there, that he was there all alone, you know, and just crazy.

I mean, just the thoughts. I mean, after my divorce, I just, I went down the wrong road, took me to some places that I didn't want to be. So now 30 years later, sure, let's give you your license back. When are they going to say enough's enough? Or don't they ever say that? It's wrong. Totally wrong. I understand that you and Karen have reached out to Byr numerous times, but have yet to get a response from him.

Is that right? Yeah, that's right. He's refused to answer any of our questions up to this point. Christopher remind us, where can we get to see? All of these episodes are in our NYC Now podcast feed. You can binge the whole series now. They're all out. If you don't already subscribe, please go and do that.

We're on the apps where you get all the podcasts. And you can also find it on our new site, Gothamist. That's WMYC's investigative editor, Christopher Worth, talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, I've AVE, Carewolde, Rio, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jen Munson, and Wayne Schoemeister, with help from all of my great colleagues in the WNYC Newsroom.

Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a great weekend.