The military has launched two investigations into the actions of a Canadian doctor and author, whose graphic description of a Nova Scotia soldier's dying moments in Afghanistan has unleashed a torrent of criticism from family and friends who say the account is tasteless and violates medical ethics.
The Department of National Defence said it has initiated a military police investigation as well as a summary investigation into the conduct of Kevin Patterson, a physician and novelist who worked at the coalition medical facility in Kandahar this year.
In the July-August issue of Mother Jones magazine, Dr. Patterson describes in gruesome detail the death on the operating table of Corporal Kevin Megeney, a 25-year-old reservist from Stellarton, N.S., who was shot in the chest in his tent at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization base in Kandahar.
The death, which has been described as resulting from non-enemy action, is still being probed by the military's National Investigation Service.
Details of the efforts to save the soldier's life are recounted by Dr. Patterson in the narrative climax of a 7,000-word memoir detailing his six weeks as a doctor in Kandahar.
“Corporal Kevin Megeney's uniform is soaked with blood where the bullet has entered his right chest, just below the armpit,” Dr. Patterson writes, describing the moment when the soldier was brought to the coalition-run base hospital.
Dr. Patterson's description becomes more vivid, detailing the massive bleeding from the wound and the desperate and ultimately unsuccessful efforts made by the surgical team to save Cpl. Megeney's life through an emergency operation to open his chest.
The doctor's grisly depiction of the young soldier's final moments on the operating table has angered George Megeney, Cpl. Megeney's uncle. The family is also close to the family of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who attended the soldier's funeral.
“Certainly the family are not happy, not at all, ” Mr. Megeney, a retired police officer, said in an interview from New Glasgow, N.S. “It was very graphic. That doctor was way out of line.
“In my opinion, he breached doctor-patient confidentiality,” the uncle continued. “It was very unethical of him. He could've written it without naming him. … It was very self-promoting.
“This boy died less than six months ago. Put yourself in the parents' situation,” he continued. “This guy betrayed the trust of the Megeney family.”
Friends of the dead soldier have also expressed their distress in a series of postings on Mother Jones's website.
“I think this article should be removed,” wrote one reader, identified only as “a Nova Scotian.” “How awful to read about the death of your son and what the doctor did to him on the operating table in detail.”
“When I read this article, I was completely shocked,” wrote Donna from Pictou County, N.S. “I can't believe these graphic details are made public. Kevin's family is suffering enough. They don't need this.”
“Shame on you,” wrote Ed MacIntosh, saying he was disgusted by the account. “I hope you get sued too.”
Responding to the onslaught of criticism, Mother Jones's co-editor, Clara Jeffery, said in a posting on the magazine's website that she had contacted the family prior to publication and that Cpl. Megeney's mother had said that the article would help the family have closure.
Ms. Jeffery concluded that it would be a disservice to soldiers like Cpl. Megeney for the public to “live in denial about what happens in a war.”
Lieutenant-Commander Pierre Babinsky, a spokesman for DND, said the investigations will determine whether there have been any breaches of laws or regulations under the National Defence Act. The summary investigation will be undertaken by National Defence's health services group.
He said that civilian contractors like Dr. Patterson are subject to the National Defence Act and to the military code of service discipline. “They're well aware of their responsibilities and the laws that apply to them,” he added.
Dr. Patterson, 42, who has written a memoir of sailing to Tahiti as well as a novel tracking the history of an Inuit family, defended his decision to identify Cpl. Megeney in the article.
“His death was well covered in the Canadian media and it was already in the news that he had been shot in the chest and brought to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery,” he said in an interview from his home in Salt Spring Island, B.C., adding that the corporal's identity would have been easily guessed by readers even if he had declined to name him.
In the past, when he has written about patients he has treated, Dr. Patterson said he had changed details of their identity to protect their privacy. But the case of Cpl. Megeney was different, because he had died and his name had been in the news.
“The fact is that writing about war is always charged,” he said, adding that it is important for Canadians to understand what the war in Afghanistan entails.
Asked whether he had gone to Afghanistan with the intention of writing about his experience, Dr. Patterson responded that he had signed up as a doctor but conceded, “I had an idea that I might write about my time there.”
A version of the account will be included in Outside The Wire, an anthology of writing about Canada's Afghan military mission co-edited by Dr. Patterson, to be published this fall. He has also written freelance material for The Globe and Mail.
Dr. Patterson, a native of Selkirk, Man., who put himself through medical school by enlisting in the Canadian Army, said he understood that the military's “instinct tends to be protective of everything that happens out there,” but said it was important that Canadians “understand what's going on there.”
With a report from Hayley Mick
