Kermit Texas Nurse Faces 10 Prison Years For Reporting Doctor's Malpractice

There is a whole lotta crazy that goes on in Texas. I've mentioned before that the zone I live in takes on Orwellian aspects at times, what with all the double-speak from various Texas state agencies that are supposed to be protecting the people and the environment.

But it's not just my zone of Texas. A whole lotta crazy comes out of this little town in far West Texas, called Kermit.

Gar the Texan is from Kermit. That's one example. Sheriff Robert L. Roberts Jr., that's him in the picture, is another example of crazy coming out of Kermit.

There is this medical thing called the Hippocratic Oath, that's an oath medical type people take in which they pledge, among other things, to do no harm to patients.

Well, the Hippocratic Oath has been turned upside down in Kermit. A doctor in Kermit, Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., was doing bad things, like doing a skin graft, that failed, in an emergency room where he did not have surgical privileges. Another time Arafiles sutured a rubber tip to a patient's finger, an unorthodox procedure which was deemed inappropriate by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

A nurse, Anne Mitchell, had seen enough of what she believed to be Arafiles' bad medicine. She and a fellow nurse, Vickilyn Galle, sent a letter detailing the bad medicine they had witnessed, to state regulators.

That letter set in motion a bizarre chain of events that now has the good nurse indicted, facing 10 years in prison, for being true to the Hippocratic Oath. Nurse Mitchell is set to stand trial in state court on Monday for "misuse of official information." Whatever that is, it is a 3rd-degree felony in Texas.

The state prosecutor claims he will show that Nurse Mitchell had a history of making inflammatory statements about Dr. Arafiles, intending to damage his reputation, when she reported him to the Texas Medical Board, last April.

Nurse Mitchell, on the other hand, she being a voice of sanity in the troubled town of Kermit, said she had a professional obligation to protect patients from what she saw was a pattern of improper prescribing and surgical procedures.

Charges were dropped against co-letter writer, Nurse Galle.

When the medical board told Dr. Arafiles about the anonymous complaint, he complained to a friend that he was being harassed by a pair of nurses. Arafiles' friend happened to be Winkler County Sheriff, Robert L. Roberts Jr., who credits Arafiles with saving his life, after a heart attack.

Sheriff Roberts showed his appreciation of the bad doctor's good work, in his case, by obtaining a search warrant to seize the 2 nurses' work computers, where he found the evidence of their crime. That being the whistle blowing letter their consciences told them to write, which they felt they were free to do, living, as they do, or so they thought, in the land of the free.

No one had told the nurses they were not living in the land of the free, they were living in Orwellian Texas. It's a totally different country from the rest of America.

Obviously, this has been an extremely twisted nightmare that has been visited upon these nurses. State and national nurses associations have raised over $40,000 for the defense. Legal experts, operating outside of the Malice in Blunderland zone, say Nurse Mitchell would seem to be protected by Texas whistle-blower laws.

The nurses' lawyers have filled a civil suit in federal court charging the county, hospital, sheriff, doctor and prosecutor with vindictive prosecution and denial of the nurses' First Amendment free speech rights.

Nurse Mitchell's co-conspirator, Nurse Galle, said, "We're just in disbelief that you could be arrested for doing something you had been told your whole career was an obligation."

Nurse Galle, it's not just you and Nurse Mitchell who are shaking their heads in disbelief, heads are shaking in disbelief all over America and the world, over the latest scary stuff to come out of Texas, that common sense would seem to dictate would, should never happen.

But, somehow does.

UPDATE: Video of Dr. Arafiles. Watch it and ask yourself if you want him operating on you.

UPDATE: Read the Texas Medical Board document regarding 2007 malpractice charges against Kermit Dr. Arafiles.

The Kermit Nurse Scandal Grows With Revelation Of Earlier Dr. Arafiles Malpractice Charges

The Kermit Nurse Scandal continues to be scandalous. My two bloggings about this West Texas Scandal has generated the most comments since I blogged about the Only Child Syndrome Scandal. In the first blogging about the Kermit Nurse Scandal I just wrote an overview of the bizarre legal authority misconduct taking place in Kermit, bringing a nurse, Anne Mitchell, to trial because she reported bad practices by a bad doctor to the appropriate Texas medical authority.

I blogged again about the Kermit Nurse Scandal after Anonymous sent me a link to a YouTube video of the doctor at the heart of the scandal, Rolando German Arafiles, Jr. M.D., where the doctor is on some Christian Network TV show trying to sell snake oil.

The comments have been very interesting. A couple comments, of course from Anonymous, come to the defense of the doctor and Kermit and paint Nurse Mitchell as an evil doer. Go to the first blogging about the Kermit Nurse Scandal to read that comment. It's the first comment, followed by many more comments, with the commenters appalled at the first Anonymouses' anonymous comment.

Then I got a comment from another Anonymous telling me that Dr. Arafiles has gotten in trouble before, back in 2007. Apparently for running some sort of quack diet clinic where he overprescibed potent pills, among other bad behaviors. That is a snapshot of Dr. Arafiles signature on the document in which he agrees to pay a fine and cease the bad behaviors, among a lot of other legalese. You can read the entire Texas Medical Board review of Dr. Arafiles license to practice medicine.

And then another Anonymous said...

As a nurse who has practiced in many states, I think this is scary. What this nurse has done is to rock the ol'boy network that still apparently exists in Texas. We see this in Georgia to some extent. If she cites her state's nurse practice act--she should be covered. The public would cringe if they knew the full extent of the poor medical practices that nurses witness. So, this nurse must have seen more than she could bear to look away from. If she looses this fight, the nurses of Texas should pack up and move to a state where they are appreciated.

A non-Anonymous calling herself kdmidd tell us her harrowing personal experience with the Kermit Hospital and the doctors who "practice" there....

When I was ten years old I broke my leg and was taken to Kermit Hospital before being transported to Odessa. The Doctor on duty in Kermit that night gave a 10 year old girl enough morphine for a 45 year old 200lbs man...then sent me on an ambulance 45 miles to Odessa without a splint on my leg- apparently forgetting that my leg was CROOKED- Kermit hospital is crap at best...and maybe they wouldnt be if they could bring in a decent Dr...they've had kooks for years...who else would choose to practice there?

And then another Anonymous charges Nurse Mitchell with rule violations...

Nurse Mitchell has violated HIPPA, you know those little rules that protect patient confidentiality? She and her cohort failed to BLACK OUT patient names when reporting the malpractice to the proper authorities. Ooops, should have been a bit more careful. You'd think a NURSE with all her experience and years of training would of remembered something like that...does make one wonder. And a whole host of people are being subpoenaed, seems like they were all standing nearby and overheard the nurses discussing openly these patients and their conditions, uh oh...isn't that another rule violation?

Things are not entirely what they seem. True, they seem to be incredulous, but only to the outside observer. The town of Kermit follows the Good Ol Boy handbook. You can find this book filed in the W Library over in Midland, he was the author.

To which another Anonymous was a Voice Reason, unlike the previous Anonymouses' illogical gibberish...

This is horrendous for all healthcare nurses, risk managers and compliance officers.

When as one of these professional encounter a fellow healthcare provider who, in our professional judgement, is failing to practice safe medicine, we are bound by our nursing code of ethics and our state licenses to take steps to protect the welfare of our patients.

The hosptial was notifed and slapped the doctor on the wrist. Nurse Michell is being hung out to dry by the very system that is suppose to support quality medicine and reporting. I am appauled by this case and the potential implications of resultant case law.

The sheriff in this story needs to share a cell with this doctor.

Anne Mitchell Acquitted By West Texas Jury After Less Than An Hour Deliberation

Well. What a day. Justice has prevailed in West Texas.

Well, a bit of justice has prevailed, in that Nurse Anne Mitchell has been acquitted by a West Texas jury in a bizarre case where the nurse had been arrested, accused and indicted for committing the imaginary crime of reporting a malpracticing doctor to the appropriate authorities.

Out of the Kermit Nurse Scandal many Kermit dirty deeds have been slithering to the surface, like rattlesnakes in the spring. The Kermit Nurse Scandal may be setting in motion the cleaning up of what, apparently, has long been a really creepy town.

The ridiculous trial part of Nurse Anne Mitchell's Kermit ordeal is over. But that does not mean she is whole. As in restored to her pre, damaged by Dr. Arafiles and Kermit, state.

Anne Mitchell and her fellow victim, Nurse Vickilyn Galle, have civil lawsuits pending in federal court against Winkler county, the Kermit hospital, Dr. Arafiles and various officials, including, I would hope, the obviously corrupt sheriff who worked in cahoots with the malpracticing doctor to have the good nurses arrested. Nurses Mitchell and Galle charge that their firing and indictment violated their 1st Amendment rights and their right to due process.

I love the way America works. When it works the way it is intended to.

Congrats to Nurse Anne Mitchell and those who fought to do the right thing. And the jury.

And now it is time to fire and possibly indict a Kermit sheriff, named Robert L. Roberts. He needs to face jail time via an indictment and a conviction.

I love poetic justice. Oh, I forgot to mention, there is a doctor in Kermit who needs to have his license to practice medicine taken away. Last name Arafiles. He should be easy to locate.

Listen To The Kermit Texas Doctor Who Got Nurse Anne Mitchell Fired & Brought To Trial & See If You Want Him Operating On You

Yesterday I blogged about a bizarre story coming out of Kermit, Texas that has become the latest Texas embarrassment, if not in Texas, in the rest of America and the world.

A nurse, Anne Mitchell, was arrested, indicted and today, if events proceeded as scheduled, brought to trial, in Kermit, for reporting what she believed to be the dangerous medical practices of the man you see in the picture, Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles Jr.

The picture is taken from a YouTube video in which the doctor is on some Christian TV Network going on about some medical condition I've never heard of, for which he offers a cure.

The blogging about this latest Texas bizarreness has generated a lot of comments, many from people who have had personal experience with the Kermit hospital at the center of this scandal.

Then one from my favorite commenters, the ubiquitous Anonymous, said...

Of course, it wouldn't be the perfect Texas story unless this quack doctor and placebo huckster peddled his wares under the veneer of professionalism on a Christian cable network, during a program addressing a condition whose very existence is in doubt by most of the medical community, right?

Oh wait, it is the perfect Texas story!

Now, watch the below YouTube video and tell me how fast you'd run out of the operating room if you saw this was your doctor? Also make note of how he refers to "mainstream doctors" which indicates Arafiles recognizes he is out of the mainstream, which a Kermit nurse also recognized and realized something needed to be done. And so she did it. And now faces a 10 year prison term. For doing the right thing. Again. Any of you reading this ready to be operated on by this guy? Want him treating your kid?

UPDATE: Read the Texas Medical Board document regarding 2007 malpractice charges against Kermit Dr. Arafiles.

An Offbeat Writer & A Truly Frivolous Lawsuit: The State of Texas vs. Anne Mitchell

The bizarre case of Texas vs. Anne Mitchell, taking place out in Kermit, Texas, has quickly grown to scandal status as the rest of America and the world looks in on the latest goofy gift from Texas to the world.

This very blog you are looking at right now has been being a bit more busy than usual, due to the bloggings about the Kermit Nurse Scandal. This has generated a lot of interesting comments. I mentioned that fact earlier today.

I think the most damning, as in damningly revealing revelation, has been the YouTube video of the now notorious Doctor at the heart of the scandal, Rolando Arafiles, peddling snake oil on one of those obscure Christian TV Shows that gum up the airways.

One of the reasons my bloggings about this subject are getting a lot of readers is various forums and websites have linked to the bloggings. One very insightful website, that being "Rethinking Patient Safety" linked to my bloggings and exclaimed that "Durango just became my favorite offbeat writer, posting a performance of Dr. Arafiles on a religious television channel."

Now, this is a first. I feel like I've won an award or something. In all my decades I don't previously recollect ever being referred to as "offbeat." I'm truly touched.