Florida’s universities never disappoint. This blog would be a bore without the bizarre stories coming out of the sunshine state almost on a daily basis.
Here’s one, from the University of South Florida, a goldmine of the grotesque.
USF Health officials are reviewing the actions of a University doctor who withheld evidence from authorities in a murder investigation, said USF Health spokeswoman Anne DeLotto Baier.
Dr. David Ciesla, associate professor of surgery and director of the trauma/critical care division for the USF medical school, kept a bullet he discovered while performing surgery April 21 on murder suspect Thomas Ford McCoy, Jr.
Ciesla, who is still a USF employee, was sentenced to two years’ probation and 100 community service hours Aug. 17.
… Dr. Sergio Alvarez, a second-year plastic surgery resident at USF, assisted Ciesla while he performed surgery on McCoy, who was shot by a deputy U.S. marshal.
Alvarez said in an interview with Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agents that Ciesla saw the bullet near the liver during the operation and said, “There it is.”
After Alvarez spotted the bullet and agreed, Ciesla said, “No, it’s not.”
Alvarez said Ciesla took his eyes off the patient, looked at him, and said, “You didn’t see a bullet.”
Alvarez told the FDLE agents he did not continue the conversation, but had his eyes on Ciesla during the entire surgery because he was “a little taken by the whole incident.”
As Ciesla was preparing to leave the operating table, Ciesla said, “Oh, I almost forgot. This is what we do with bullets.”
Ciesla reached his hand into the patient’s abdomen and withdrew the bullet, Alvarez said to the FDLE.
“I saw him push the (bullet) into the palm of his right hand,” Alvarez said. “I saw him place what he had in his right hand into his right pocket.”
After the surgery, Ciesla told agents who had been assigned to collect evidence in the operating room that he did not remove a bullet from McCoy during surgery, according to FDLE reports.
“There were two (agents) in the operating room and one outside the door,” said Susan Shaffi, a third-year surgery resident at the time who also assisted Ciesla the day of the incident.
Shaffi said to FDLE agents that she heard Ciesla tell agents after the surgery, “They’re in the liver. We don’t go after bullets in the liver.”…
He’s his department’s representative to the USF faculty council…. UD likes to think of him giving updates to the assembly while rattling all the bullets in his labcoat …
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Update: More on pockets.
As pressure mounted during the summer from an all-consuming admissions scandal, University of Illinois President B. Joseph White carried in his pocket a motivational card reminding him to “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
White has resigned.