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Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. This is daily crime and
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Justice from Calaroga Shark Media powered by AI. I'm Garrett Fisher. Tuesday,
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August eleventh, twenty twenty six. There is a question that
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got asked in a Plymouth, Massachusetts courtroom yesterday morning that
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I have not been able to stop thinking about. A
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defense attorney named Kevin Reddington was standing in front of
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a psychiatrist named doctor Jennifer Tuffs. Doctor Tufts treated Lindsay
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Clancy for four months. She was the last doctor to
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see her before three children died, and Reddington asked her
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about an advertisement a professional bio posted online in which
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doctor Tuft's described an interest in women's mental health and
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paranatal psychiatry from pregnancy through two years postpartum, and then
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he asked her how long she had been practicing independently
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when that bio went up. So he asked the obvious question,
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You advertise expertise in postpartum care with a month of experience,
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isn't that negligence? She said she did not believe she
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had been negligent. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you.
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I don't know what a jury does with that doctor
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Tuff's is not on trial in Plymouth. Lindsey Clancy is.
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The question in front of those jurors is not whether
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Lindsay Clancy's doctors were good enough. It's whether Lindsay Clancy
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was criminally responsible on January twenty fourth, twenty twenty three,
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when she took Cora, Dawson and Callen into the basement
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of their Duxbury home and strangled them with exercise bands.
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But you cannot separate those two questions cleanly, and the
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defense knows it, and yesterday the defense spent the whole
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morning proving it. Today, week three of the Lindsay Clancy trial,
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and the cross examination that packed a courtroom. Then down
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in Florida, a woman named Sarah Boone is serving life
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for a killing that was recorded on her own phone,
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and her appeal has been sitting in limbo for two
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years across thirteen different lawyers. The current one has told
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her in writing that he is not filing anything else.
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I'm Garrett Fisher. This is daily crime and justice. Before
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we get to yesterday, you need Friday because the cross
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examination only makes sense if you understand what the state
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put on the record first, and before any of that,
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the names. Cora Clancy was five years old, Dawson Clancy
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was three, Callen Clancy was an infant. They were healthy kids.
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Their pediatrician told the jury that Callen had no health
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issues at all, that Dawson had a peanut allergy and
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Cora had asthma, and that was the extent of it.
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Cora's preschool teachers described her as a sweet little girl
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who loved her little brother and liked to play with barbies.
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Dawson had started having harder drop offs at school in
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the fall of twenty twenty two, but nobody saw a
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reason for concern. Their mother has admitted that she killed them.
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What she has pleaded not guilty to is criminal responsibility.
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She faces three counts of first degree murder, and under
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Massachusetts law and under the law of every state in
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this country, she is presumed innocent until a jury says otherwise.
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That has not happened. Nothing you hear in the next
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twenty minutes changes that. On Friday, the Commonwealth called two psychiatrists.
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Both of them had treated Lindsay Clancy in the weeks
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and months before her children died. Both of them are
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also named defendants in the civil malpractice lawsuits that Clancy
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and her former husband Patrick have filed hold on to
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that because it matters. The first was doctor Aliah Goodhart
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from McLain Hospital, where Clancy admitted herself in early January
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of twenty twenty three for about five days. Goodheart testified
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that Clancy wanted to be weaned off an antipsychotic because
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it was interfering with her sleep, and that nobody at
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McLain observed signs of psychosis on cross Reddington pushed hard
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on what happened when Clancy walked out the door. Goodheart
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said the discharge was not against medical advice, that Clancy
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was urged to follow up with outside providers, and that
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she did exactly that. She made an appointment with doctor Tuffs.
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Reddington also asked Goodheart a question that is going to
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keep coming up in this trial, whether you are supposed
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to prescribe an SSRII, specifically sertraline to a patient who
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has bipolar disorder. Goodheart's answer was that it depends on
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what you're seeing when you see the patient. That's a
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real answer, and it's also exactly what a defense attorney
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wants to hear, because the theory in this case is
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that Clancy had an underlying bipolar illness nobody caught, and
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that the medication she got for depression made her worse
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instead of better. Then the state called doctor Jennifer Tuffs.
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Tuffs began treating Clancy in September of twenty twenty two.
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Clancy found her through an online search. She came in
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for anxiety about going back to work after Callen was born.
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That's how this started. A labor and delivery nurse at
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mass General for years, scared about returning to a job
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she was good at. What follows is four months of
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treatment record and the state walk the jury through all
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of it. September Zoloff prescribed therapy recommended a week later,
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she reports she hasn't taken it, but feels better anyway.
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October still significant symptoms. Tufts documents that she's depressed. Adavan
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added as needed. Later that month, a switch is proposed
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to boost par and hydroxyzine because those are considered safer
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and better tolerated. Clancy is apprehensive, but agrees November she's
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too afraid to start the bus par. Still on the adavan,
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mood documented as neutral and calm, no suicidal ideation, no psychosis.
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By the end of the month. She's enrolled at a
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perinatal health clinic on the South Shore. She's starting prozac
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and she's taking adavan and benadryl to sleep. Tuffs doesn't
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know whether the auta antaper they discussed is actually happening.
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December first, she's not doing better. The taper isn't working.
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She's now taking medications prescribed by the other clinic, transidone.
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She's tried remaran and been given sarah Quell, but hasn't
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started it. On the remarund she reports intrusive thoughts, a
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feeling that she was going to die. She denies active
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suicidal ideation, but she says she is close to it
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and that she feels very hopeless. And this is the
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part of the Friday testimony that I want you to hear,
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because Tuffs wrote it in her notes as a direct
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quote from her patient. Clancy said, I think it's my problem.
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I keep reaching out to different people. She was apologizing
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she was sitting in a psychiatric appointment, medicated, hopeless, describing
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intrusive thoughts, and she was apologizing for asking too many
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people for help. Tuffs suggested that one person should be
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managing her medications, which is the correct clinical instinct. Whether
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it happened is a different question Uestionin mid December, she's worse.
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Tuffs suggests a partial hospitalization program. On the sixteenth, Clancy
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reports she's very depressed during the day and has started
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having suicidal ideation. She goes to the emergency room at
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Mass General and declines impatient treatment. She tells Tough she
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has no plan to hurt herself, that what she has
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is a fear of never getting better. Lamc Tall is added. January,
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she goes to mclin to get off the Saraquell safely
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because she has become convinced the Saraquell is what's making
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her worse. She comes out on trazodone, adavan, and melatonin.
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No suicidal thoughts, no homicidal thoughts, no psychosis, but she
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says she feels numb and Tufft's testified that concerned her.
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She was still very depressed. The plan was to raise
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the trazodone and watch. January sixteenth, Clancy tells her doctor
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that bonding with her baby feels forced. January twenty third,
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the last appointment testified that Clancy's speech and dress and
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behavior were all appropriate. No deficits in her thinking, no
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suicidal statements, no homicidal statements, no psychosis, nothing that would
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have justified an emergency hospitalization under Massachusetts law. Tuffs also
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testified that Clancy's mood and effect had been documented the
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week before as depressed and flat. The next day, Cora, Dawson,
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and Callen were dead. That is the record the Commonwealth
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put in front of the jury, and you can read
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it two completely different ways, which is exactly why this
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trial is going to run another month. The prosecution reads
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it as here is a woman who was seen by
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a psychiatrist fourteen times over four months, who was asked
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at every single appointment whether she had thoughts of hurting
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herself or anyone else, who said no every single time,
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and who, on the day before she killed her children,
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presented as depressed but organized, coherent and appropriate, not psychotic depressed.
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The defense reads it as here is a woman who
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spent four months telling everybody who would listen that she
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was drowning, who was cycled through ten or more medications,
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who was so worried about being a burden that she
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apologized for asking for help, and who was still not
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better on the day she walked out of her last appointment.
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Both of those readings are supported by the same set
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of notes. That's the whole problem. One more thing from Friday,
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and it's not testimony. Before the afternoon session, with the
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jury out of the room, Reddington told the judge he
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had heard a prosecutor picked up on a hot microphone
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the day before, saying, in reference to his client, shut
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her up. That was Thursday, the day the medical examiner
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testified about Callen's autopsy, the day a court officer wheeled
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Lindsey Clancy out of the room while she sobbed. The
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judge wanted to handle it at sidebar. Reddington did not.
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He said so out loud in open court. Emotions in
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that room are running high, and they are running high
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in both directions. We'll be right back Monday morning, Plymouth
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Superior Court, Day ten. The line to get into that
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courtroom was longer than it had been on any day
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since Patrick Clancy testified. And Patrick Clancy is the father
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of the three children who died. That tells you what
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people understood was about to happen. Kevin Reddington got up
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to cross examine doctor Jennifer Tuffs, and he did not
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start with January twenty third, He did not start with
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the medications. He started with her resume. When did you
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become a doctor? When was your residency? When did you
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get board certified? Here's what came out. Tufts completed a
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four year residency at Boston Medical Center twenty eighteen to
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twenty twenty two. She was board certified in September of
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twenty twenty two. She started at a practice called Astor
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Mental Health that August. Lindsey Clancy became her patient in September.
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So Reddington asked the arithmetic question, you had been practicing
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as a psychiatrist for a little more than a month,
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and Tuffs corrected him carefully. She said she had been
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practicing independently with her full credentials for about a month,
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and she added that the training before that in residency
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was immense. That is a fair correction. By the way,
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a physician finishing a four year residency is not a rookie.
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She had been treating patients for years. What she had
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not been doing for years was making the call by herself.
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Reddington kept going, how many patients with postpartum depression had
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she treated in that month and a half at Astor
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Before Lindsey Clancy walked in answer, maybe a couple, but
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many during the residency. He pressed on that number. She
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said about fifty to four years at Boston Medical Center,
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and then he brought up the advertisement. Doctor Tuffs has
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a professional bio describing a particular interest in women's mental
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health and paranatal psychiatry, pregnancy through two years postpartum. That's
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how patients find a specialist. That's how Lindsey Clancy found
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her online search matching bio appointment made so. Reddington asked
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whether advertising yourself is an expert in postpartum care with
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a month of independent experience was negligence. She said she
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did not believe she was negligent. Then he moved to
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the thing that I think may actually stick with this
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jury longer than the credentials. Fourteen appointments four months. Every
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single one of them was telemedicine. Reddington put it to her, plainly,
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until you walked into this courtroom, you had never seen
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Lindsay Clancy in person, and doctor Tuff said, yes, that's correct.
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Fourteen video calls a patient with worsening depression, insomnia, intrusive thoughts,
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a fear of never getting better, cycling through a pharmacy's
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worth of medication, and the psychiatrist managing that had never
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been in a room with her. Now, I want to
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be careful here because I'm not going to stand up
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and tell you tell amedicine is the villain. Tell a
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psychiatry is how an enormous number of Americans get any
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mental health care at all. And for a mother with
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three kids under five, a video appointment may have been
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the only kind she could actually attend. The alternative to
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a video visit is very often no visit. But there
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is a difference between a tool and a substitute, and
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a jury in Plymouth is now going to sit with
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the image of a woman seen fourteen times by a
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specialist she found on a website through a screen, and
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never once in the same room. Reddington then asked her
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what therapy she actually provided, Not medication therapy her answer,
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and I'm quoting it because paraphrasing it would be unfair
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to her. I listen to her, listen to her concerns,
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provided hope. I'm not going to pretend that's nothing. Listening
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to a patient and giving her hope is a real
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part of the job. And any clinician who has sat
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with someone in the worst months of the will tell
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you it matters, but it is also and Reddington knew
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this a sentence a jury hears as thin. He asked
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what treatment she gave. She described a posture. There was
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one more line of attack, and it's the most technical
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and possibly the most damaging. Reddington asked about a specific
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postpartum screening instrument. Tufts testified she did not administer that one,
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that she used a different depression screening tool instead, and
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that she was not aware the postpartum screening had been
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given to Clancy elsewhere and had come back showing severe depression.
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That is the whole defense case compressed into one exchange.
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A result existed, it showed severe depression, and the psychiatrist
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managing her medications did not know about it. Now Here
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is the part that a lot of the coverage is
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going to scape past, and I don't think we should.
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Doctor Tufts and doctor Goodhart are not neutral witnesses. They
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are not disinterested experts flown in to explain a concept.
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They are the treating physicians. And they are both named
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defendants in civil malpractice lawsuits filed by Lindsay Clancy and