ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on health care providers who poison multiple patients in the course of their regular professional practice, most often in treatment facilities. The poisoners in the majority of the reported cases are nurses, but they include physicians, specialized treatment technicians, orderlies, and other individuals who have regular access to patients and can administer poisons while performing their normal care-giving duties. Sudden unexpected deaths are always of concern to health care supervisors and administrators. When they occur, the possibility of intentional homicide is not usually among the potential explanations that might be pursued. Intentional hospital homicides perpetuated by health care providers are exceedingly difficult to detect. Unless there is some very unusual basis for considering otherwise, an unexpected death is likely to be attributed to a medical aberration or some unrecognized underlying medical condition. The number of intentional homicidal deaths from serial health care poisoners is small compared to the backdrop of deaths that occur for other reasons.
