ER Doctor Mocks Patient With Anxiety Attacks In Viral Video, Gets Suspended

A video surfaced on Facebook showing an emergency room physician mocking a patient who said he was suffering from an anxiety attack. The video quickly went viral with more than 4 million views and resulted in the suspension of the doctor, identified as Beth Keegstra, of El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos, California.

The video shows Keegstra doubting Samuel Bardwell’s account of what happened to him and also trying to force the man to sit up by pulling at his arm.

“You are the least sick of all the people who are here, who are dying. So you put your head up. Don’t try to tell me you can’t move. Come on. Sit up,” the doctor is heard saying in the video.

“You want us to wheel you to your house in a gurney?” she asks him, after.

The 20-year-old patient had asked the doctor for anxiety medication, to which she responds by asking if he needed “narcotics.” Bardwell, who is a sophomore at West Lake College, said the most recent attack left him unconscious and numb from head to toe.

“It’s very fatal because my eyes were rolled to the back of my head. I could not see, I could not talk. My breathing was getting lower and lower,” he reportedly said.

However, doctor Keegstra was dismissive of his symptoms. Bardwell takes Klonopin, a medicine used to treat seizures, panic disorder, and anxiety, SF Gate reported.

Bardwell's father Donald, who posted the video online, said his son has a history of anxiety attacks and he had not been taking the sedative leading up the Monday anxiety attack.

“She never first came in and introduced herself,” Donald said of Keegstra. “She never said her name, she never asked for his name, she never really examined him.”

Keegstra even accused Donald and his son of coming in for drugs.

“She said, ‘I know why you people are here, you people who come here for drugs,’ and I said ‘What do you mean you people?’” Donald said. “She was rambling on so angrily that’s why I pulled out my phone.”

El Camino Hospital released a statement saying Keegstra has been “removed from the work schedule, pending further investigation.”

“This week, a patient who visited the emergency department at our Los Gatos campus had an interaction with a physician whose demeanor was unprofessional and not the standard we require of all who provide care through El Camino Hospital,” the hospital said. “We have expressed our sincere apologies and are working directly with the patient on this matter.”