The Good Nurse, by Charles Graeber – review

Charles Cullen, an American nurse, murdered several hundred patients by the administration in overdose of restricted drugs. Hospitals should be safe places but they are actually rather dangerous: mistakes are made, accidents happen, medics may be careless or just exhausted. But although many patients die when they should have recovered, very few die at the hands of a psychopathic serial killer — so far as we know. The trouble is, we often don’t know. There could be a Cullen working and murdering in a hospital near you. Look up ‘Healthcare professionals convicted of murdering patients’ on the internet and you find 39, and note the ‘convicted’. Many have merely been suspected but escaped conviction because of lack of evidence.

Alarmist? This is an alarming book and not far into it the reader realises that it was not only the murderer people had to fear but the hospitals in which he continued working despite warnings, dismissals on suspicion and even full investigations.