Transplant surgeon gets local support

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Sierra Vista Incident

Transplant surgeon gets local support

Paso man says Dr. Hootan Roozrokh saved his life and became a friend; he and wife don’t believe allegations that doctor hastened patient’s death

By Arnquist

Two local faces will greet San Francisco surgeon Hootan Roozrokh with support

Wednesday when he enters a local courtroom facing criminal charges of trying to hasten a potential organ donor’s death.

Paso Robles resident and school board member Joe Quiroz said that during his nearly eight-month stay at Stanford University Medical Center in 2004 and ’05, Roozrokh saved his life and became a friend.

Quiroz and his wife, Suzie, don’t believe the allegations that Roozrokh ordered excessive medication to try to hasten Navarro’s death and recover his organs last year at Sierra Vista Regional Medical

Center in San Obispo. They want the world to know Roozrokh was compassionate, humorous and dedicated with them.

“I hope he gets cleared completely and he can get back to saving lives,” Suzie Quiroz said.

In what is thought to be the first case of its kind nationally, local prosecutors charged Roozrokh, 33, in July

with three felonies related to a failed attempt last year to harvest organs from Navarro, a disabled man from San Obispo.

Roozrokh is expected to plead not guilty Wednesday to charges of dependent-adult abuse, administering a harmful substance and unlawful prescribing of a controlled substance.

Prosecutors allege that Roozrokh violated state law and Sierra Vista’s protocol on Feb. 3, 2006, when he took control of Navarro’s care before he was dead and ordered a nurse to give the man abnormally high doses of morphine and Ativan to hasten death. Prosecutors also say Roozrokh injected Betadine, a topical antiseptic, into Navarro’s feeding tube.

A judge granted Roozrokh an extension from his August arraignment. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to eight years in prison and a $20,000 fine.

The doctor’s Marin-based attorney, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, maintains Roozrokh did nothing wrong and has unfairly been the subject of a witch hunt.

Schwartzbach has said Roozrokh had nothing to do with the decision to end 25- year-old Navarro’s life, stressing that Navarro’s organs were never recovered and that he didn’t die until eight hours after Roozrokh left the hospital.

Pending a motion by the District Attorney’s Office for a gag order, Schwartzbach would not comment for this story or allow Roozrokh to discuss his recollections of the Quirozes.

Roozrokh’s colleagues at Stanford did not return The Tribune’s requests for comment.

Quiroz said Roozrokh was respected and liked by the medical staff at Stanford, from attending physicians to interns and nurses, who all called him by his nickname “Dr. Hootie.”

‘A nice, all-American kid’

Quiroz wound up in Roozrokh’s care in 2004, when local doctors referred him to Stanford surgeons to remove growths that were obstructing his colon to the point where eating caused misery and pain.

He arrived at the Palo Alto hospital gravely ill. Roozrokh was the first physician he saw, and Quiroz said the doctor made him feel instantly at ease.

Quiroz had six surgeries over the next eight months. Roozrokh was involved in most of them, Quiroz said.

Quiroz has no medical expertise, and his comments are based solely on his personal observations and feelings. He acknowledged that it’s not uncommon for patients to think highly of physicians who save their lives.

Several life-threatening complications forced Quiroz to stay at the hospital for seven months. Roozrokh stopped in his room nearly every day, Quiroz said.

He describes Roozrokh as “a nice, all-American kid”—saying kid because, at the time they met, Roozrokh was 30 and Quiroz was nearly 60.

The doctor had a dry sense of humor, using it to break tension at appropriate times, he said. Roozrokh was confident in his abilities, and Quiroz said that confidence reassured him and other patients.

Still, Quiroz said he can see how some who don’t know Roozrokh well could mistake his confidence for arrogance.

Suzie Quiroz slept on a cot at the hospital next to Joe Quiroz, then her fiancée. She said Roozrokh took time to explain things to her and reassured her when her own confidence wavered. Before one surgery, Roozrokh placed a hand on Quiroz’s abdomen, and then, she said, they prayed together.

“He was a healer for everyone,” she said. “I know that if we were to go through this again that I wouldn’t hesitate to have Dr. Hootan be my husband’s doctor.”

The couple married after Quiroz left the hospital in 2005. They invited Roozrokh, but his work schedule prevented him from attending.

When Quiroz returned to Stanford for his last operation, Roozrokh no longer worked there, but visited him from San Francisco, where he worked at Kaiser Permanente’s liver transplant program.

The Quirozes went to see Roozrokh the first time he appeared in court on Aug. 14. Quiroz said Roozrokh expressed gratitude that his friends hadn’t abandoned him.

“He was overwhelmed when Suzie and I showed up,” Quiroz said. “He told his lawyers ‘I told you Smokin’ Joe would be here.’ “

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/137655.html