clinicide

English

WOTD – 18 August 2020

Etymology

From clini(cal) (“dealing with the practical management of patients”) +‎ -cide (suffix meaning ‘killing’).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈklɪnɪsaɪd/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈklɪnɪˌsaɪd/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cli‧ni‧cide

Noun

clinicide (countable and uncountable, plural clinicides)

1. The deliberate killing of a patient in the course of medical treatment.
   • 2006 March, Robert [M.] Kaplan, “Harold Shipman: An Awful Sod: Review of Clarkson W., Evil beyond Belief”, in Gary Walter, editor, Australasian Psychiatry‎^[1], volume 14, number 1, [Thousand Oaks, Calif.]: SAGE Publications for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 August 2020, pages 90 and 92:

     [page 90, column 1] [Harold] Shipman killed himself in Wakefield prison on 13 January 2004. The Coronial hearing brought to an end a series of inquiries that found he had committed at least 250 murders in a killing career – a clinicide – that went back to internship at Pontefract General Infirmary. [...] [page 92, column 1] The frenetic consulting was a process of constant preparation for the clinicides, familiarizing himself with the killing ground and meticulously preparing for the moment when he could catch the patient alone, swiftly kill them and loot the place for their stock of narcotics, either for his own use or to use on the next victim.

   • 2007 August, Robert [M.] Kaplan, “The Clinicide Phenomenon: An Exploration of Medical Murder”, in Gary Walter, editor, Australasian Psychiatry‎^[2], volume 15, number 4, [Thousand Oaks, Calif.]: SAGE Publications for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 August 2020, pages 299–300:

     Clinicide is the unnatural death of multiple patients in the course of treatment by a doctor. Clinicide occurs in a group that has a high rate of homicide. [H. G.] Kinnell maintains that doctors kill more than any other group (veterinarians, apparently, have never produced a serial killer).

   • 2009, Robert M. Kaplan, “Searching for Shipman”, in Medical Murder: Disturbing Cases of Doctors Who Kill, [Sydney, N.S.W.]: Read How You Want, published 2010, →ISBN, page 117:

     The analogies between poisoning patients, forging a will to announce the end of the clinicides and finally, death by hanging seem uncannily close.

   • 2010, Joshua A. Perper, Stephen J. Cina, “To Catch a Killer: Investigating Serial Murders”, in When Doctors Kill: Who, Why, and How, New York, N.Y.: Copernicus Books, Springer Science+Business Media, →ISBN, section 2 (When Doctors Kill), page 50:

     Clinicide can also be detected by the substantiation of injurious, unnecessary, and potentially lethal medical procedures or treatment.

   • 2013, Brian Hurwitz, “Healthcare Serial Killings: Was the Case of Dr Harold Shipman Unthinkable?”, in Danielle Griffiths, Andrew Sanders, editors, Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law (Cambridge Bioethics and Law), volumes 2 (Medicine, Crime and Society), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 19:

     The striking aspect of clinicide is the scale of suspicious deaths with which it is associated, which outnumbers proven murders by an order of magnitude (in [Harold] Shipman's case, a factor of $(240-15)/15=15)$, a figure that only hints at the enormous interpersonal disruption and family grief which follows in its wake.

Derived terms

• clinicidal

Translations

deliberate killing of a patient in the course of medical treatment