Aquarius;3834455 said:
I'd like to hear from Dr. Finkeltein. Why would he give morphine in a drip for 24 hrs to Michael if he thought he was an addict? He sounds like Conrad saying Michael was addicted to propofol but he gave it to him anyway. Some doctors they are.
Petrarose;3834607 said:
I want the dr to explain himself too. What I don't understand is what happened. Did Michael have surgery, was given an addictive drug, & naturally became addicted to it. Or did he have surgery, started taking too much of his drug, became addicted & then used it when he did not need it. I don't understand what happened & people are getting the sense that he just started abusing his painkillers. Why did he have to have a drip for 24 hours, unless the pain was very severe. Panish mentions the 24 hour drip but does not explain why the drip was given. Maybe the information is in the deposition.
From Michael's statement , what happened is : pain was due to scalp burn/surgery, he was given pain medication , ( strong pain meds are based on morphine and are addictive, so there was probably no choice at the time) , he became dependant, and at a certain time - I'm guessing allegations- started taking too much and/ or used them for anxiety (that medication can have some "high" side effect, which is why certain people use them as a recreational drug). It got out of ocntrol, he had to go to rehab.
As to why a doctor will use that, a doctor has to deal with pain, and will do what he can, a doctor can not do miracles. He will try to find the right balance to alleviate the pain without causing too many side effects. Side effects are not always possible to avoid , so sometimes the doctor will have to make a difficult decision and chose between 2 evils, in his patient's best interest.
What I mean is , in spite of being addicted, he was in pain due to the surgery at this particular point in time. So the doctor had to give pain med anyway.
Giving it IV instead of orally could be for Michael to have a steady dose all the time, instead of pills that will give you a high dose that will fade away, and then you will have to take more pills. Maybe he used it IV and took the pils away from Michael so the doctor could control the dose, maybe the IV was just so Michael could rest and not be woken up by pain (steady dose that keeps coming in).
All thses are assumptions, only a doctor could explain it, what I mean is that it doesn't say anything about Finkelstein IMO, we'll have to wait for more info.
I agree with Putnam on that, these things have to be put in context, and only a doctor, not a lawyer , can evaluate a treatment or if the doctor crosses a line.
Aquarius;3834455 said:
So far in this trial I just heard about accusations towards AEG & I see emails that while they didn't refer to Michel in a nice way, at least they show that in their own way they tried to help him. They tried to look for a nutritionist, psychiatrist, the problem was that they didn't know the benzos & propofol were the causes of Michael physical condition & the biggest problem they had was that probably Michael wouldn't accept their help.
E mails insulting or making fun of Michael, more or less kindly, came from too many people IMO (Trell, that person whose name I don't remeber who called him a freak, Gongaware, Hougdahl), over a long period of time (january to mid june).
It's beginning to show a general atmoshere, it was fun to make fun of Michael. The point could be that they were laughing about his health problems , which mean they saw them, but did not take them seriously.
There are only 4 days between Hougdahl's Winsconsin e mail, and his e mail to Phillips where he says he has been watching Michael degrading for 8 weeks , giving the 360° spins example.
This is very telling, when Hougdahl sent that Winsconsin e mail, Michael had already been degrading in front of him for over 7 weeks, he was already not able to do the 360° spins. That did not happen overnight.
Aquarius;3834455 said:
And again, I don't see how AEG could supervise Conrad because I think that even if AEG hired Conrad what the doc did with his patient was confidential & unless Michael gave him permission to talk about his medical treatment there was nothing AEG could do. And I keep remember that Michael brought Conrad into the picture.
Because, as you say, they tried to help with a nutritionnist while a doctor was there full time. The fact that Murray was full time was known by Gongaware & Phillips. And as Gongaware very rightly said, why need a nutritionnist when there is already a doctor ? The doc can have a look at the menus, and talk to the chef and Michael, it doesn't take that much time since he is supposed to know Michael's health and what he needs.
So i guess that's why PG felt he "had to check if CM had everything he needed" (almost the same words that Ortega used in his june 14th e mail to PG) which can be a polite soft translation for "remind him of what is expected of him", especially when CM had been "dodging Frank".
They knew the doctor was not doing his job & that something was wrong with him, and it bacame evident on june 19th/20th, as Michael's health kept getting worse inspite of a doctor being there all the time. That's where it becomes negligent and shows lack of supervision.
At that point (19th/20th) Phillips had enough info to connect the dots, and he was very close to find out. He chose to support Murray AND shut Ortega up. That's HIS choice. Michael might be responsible for what he did, but so is Phillips. As i said earlier, Phillips made the worst possible choice, he has some explaining to do.
CM was not supposed to talk about his treatments, that's right, but AEG went to talk to him instead of talking to Michael. AEG were not supposed to do that, though it can be understandable if they were trying to help. IMO , the fact they went to Murray shows an employer/ independent contractor relationship, but doesn't say anything about being negligent or failing to supervise him. Did they talk to Kai Chase, did they talk to Klein ? No.
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Smoothlugar & Tygger :
Just to close the debate, can you just quote what you saw, or does it come from a different web site ?
If it comes from a different web site, maybe it would be useful to find out when Travis said this stuff (day + morning or afternoon session) and then we can talk about if it's worth to get the transcripts.
I think Travis was only stating his opinion, and if there is more info about who knew what, it will become clear when those people (Ortega, Gongaware, Phillips) testify. If it's important for the Jacksons or AEG, they will ask clear questions to clear up the subject IMO.
in fact I had to type it myself. I felt curious to know what Payne really said, which apparently is not what the article reflected or what Tygger deduced (everybody knew...).