Psychiatric residency director’s memo about Hasan, 2007

Below is the text of the May 2007 memo by the psychiatric residency director at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Major Scott Moran, about future jihad mass murderer Nidal Hasan. It was leaked to National Public Radio by an anonymous source.First, on a minor point, I can see why, as I noted in the previous entry, NPR didn’t quote from it directly. The language is technical and overloaded with professional jargon and abbreviations. More importantly, the memo is vague as to crucial matters. Yes, it speaks of an alarming lack of professionalism and responsibility on Hasan’s part. But it only makes one passing and indirect mention of Islam, that “[Hasan] was counseled for inappropriately discussing religious topics with his assigned patients.” Why doesn’t the memo provide more of an idea of what kind of religious topics he discussed and how he discussed them? If, as we’ve heard from several other sources, he was pushing Islam on the traumatized Iraq veterans who were his psychiatric patients, why doesn’t the memo say that? To me, this shows that the memo is drenched in politically correct caution. The reason Moran did not refer to Hasan’s proselytizing Islam to his patients was that such behavior would have automatically disqualified Hasan from the psychiatric residency program and from the psychiatric profession itself. But Moran and other Army supervisors didn’t want to take matters that far, for all the reasons we already know. They didn’t want to discipline a Muslim. They didn’t want to damage diversity. And they didn’t want to face even the possibility of being accused themselves of “Islamophobia” or “racism.” So Moran confined himself to a vague reference to Hasan’s “inappropriately discussing religious topics with his patients.”

Here is the memo:

[Editor’s Note: NPR has obtained a copy of the original memo; this is a transcript of that memo, not a photographic reproduction, to help protect the source.]

National Capital Consortium
Psychiatry Residency Program
Borden Pavilion, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Bldg.6, Rm. 2059, 6900 Georgia Ave, NW
Washington DC, 20307-5001
XXXXXXX

Consortium Participating Instructions: Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center, Malcolm Grow USAF Medical Center

May 17, 2007

Memorandum for: Credentials Committee

Subject: CPT Nidal Hasan

1. I am the program director for NCC Psychiatry Residency Training Program. I took over as PD in MAR 2007 and was Assistant PD from July 2006. I have been a faculty member of the residency since July 2004.

2. This memo is based on my personal knowledge of and the documented incidences in CPT Hasan’s Resident Training File.

3. The Faculty has serious concerns about CPT Hasan’s professionalism and work ethic. Clinically he is competent to deliver safe patient care. But he demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism. In his PGY-2 year, he was counseled for inappropriately discussing religious topics with his assigned patients. He also required a period of in-program remediation when he was discovered to have not documented appropriately an ER encounter with a homicidal patient who subsequently eloped from the ER. He did successfully remediate this problem. At the end of his PGY-2 year, he was placed on administrative probation by the NCC GMEC for failure to take and pass USMLE Step 3 and to obtain an unrestricted state medical license by the end of his PGY-2 year; as a result he was not promoted to PGY-3 on time. He did eventually complete step 3 and get a license and was promoted to PGY-3. He was counseled for having a poor record of attendance at didactics and lower than expected PRITE scores. One year he failed to show for his PRITE examination at all. During his PGY-3 year, he was counseled for being consistently late to NNMC morning report. During his PGY-4 year, he was discovered to have only seen 30 outpatients in 38 week of outpatient continuity clinic. He was required to make this missed clinic time up using his elective. He failed his HGT/WGT screening and was found to be out of standards with body fat % and was counseled on that.

Lastly, he missed a night of call for MGMC ER and then did not respond to numerous pages by my office the next day.

4. Take together; these issues demonstrate a lack of professionalism and work ethics. He is able to self-correct with supervision. However, at this point he should not need so much supervision. In spite of all of this, I am not able to say he is not competent to graduate nor do I think a period of academic probation now at the end of his training will be beneficial. He would be able to contain his behavior enough to complete any period of probation successfully. My purpose in writing this letter is to give the credentials committee the benefit of full disclosure and the opportunity to modify CPT Hasan’s plan of supervision following initial privileging.

5. I did discuss this memo with CPT Hasan and informed him I would be adding it to his initial credentialing paperwork.

6. POC is the undersigned and may be reached at 202-XXX-XXXX or email at XXX/

Sincerely,
Scott Moran, MAJ, MC
Program Director
NCC Psychiatry Residency Training

Speakng of PC, have you noticed how the same benign, pleasantly smiling photo of Hasan has been shown in the media, over and over? Suppose some white racist had been accused of mass murder. Do you think the media would show only a nice photo of him?

Here is the photo of Hasan that came out the day of the massacre and that I posted at VFR. I haven’t seen it in the media since then. I think the media haven’t shown it because, frankly, notwithstandiing Hasan’s slight smile, he has a subtly cruel, menacing aspect. If I knew nothing about Hasan, and saw that photo, I’d have an uncomfortable feeling about him, just as ticket agent Mark Tuohey had an uncomfortable feeling about Muhammad Atta in the Portland, Maine airport on the morning of September 11, 2001, but suppressed his intuition and didn’t do anything about it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 20, 2009 12:44 AM | Send