I was just gonna say that that is AWESOME that he recieved such good care at a VA hospital!
I had a terrible experience with a VA hospital when I was growing up. My uncle had colon cancer and he didn't receive very good treatment (and didn't make it.) I was definitely biased against VA hospitals because of it.
The fact that the doctors still don't know exactly what was wrong with my friend bothers me. BUT it would have bothered me a lot more if he hadn't made the turn around.
Thanks for the prayers and good wishes.
These posts don't surprise me in the least.. 
Sorry to hijack your thread, but the articles below are just a few of many that can be found online that address the horrid treatment patients have received at the VA hospital in Albany, NY.. For anyone who has a need or desire to use VA hospitals, I think it's important that they are aware of just what can (and does) go on in these institutions.. (Due to the length of the articles, I have eliminated some information that has been repeated in more than one - but full length articles can be found all over the internet..)
I have a cousin who worked as an RN at the Stratton VA (went to work for them 3 yrs. after my DH passed away) and after 2 very frustrating years decided to resign very recently - due to ongoing issues that continue to plague the Stratton VA Hospital and the treatment of their patients..
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Abuses Endangered Veterans in Cancer Drug Experiments - NYT
Sun, 6 Feb 2005
Paul H. Kornak
pleaded guilty to fraud, making false statements and criminally negligent homicide in the death of an Air Force veteran, James DiGeorgio -
one of the patients he used as subjects in medical experiments that he conducted at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany. Kornak admitted that he had conducted such medical experiments
without an MD license, had falsified patients' records, and exposed patients to hazardous experimental treaments. Kornak was convicted of homicide and is awaiting sentencing in May.
Kornak's lawless research conduct was facilitated by a failed system:
"Research violations were a way of life at Stratton for 10 years," said Jeffrey Fudin, a pharmacist at the hospital.
"Stratton officials turned a blind eye to unethical cancer research practices and punished those who spoke out against them."
The New York Times reports that according to the F.D.A.,
"patients' medical records were altered in at least five experimental drug studies, enabling veterans like Mr. Steubing to be enrolled in studies for which they were either too sick or too healthy to qualify. A patient with coronary disease, for instance, was enrolled in a study that excluded heart patients because of a risk of hemorrhages. A patient with impaired renal function was administered a drug toxic to kidneys that probably contributed to his death, the agency said."
Veterans at the Albany VA facility are pretty much a captive population, having no alternative treatment options outside the system.
Kornak, the NY Times points out, was "a certified clinical research professional who had passed an examination covering such ethical topics as informed consent and clinical fraud." Just about anyone can become an NIH certified "clinical research professional." I personally took an online exam administered by NIH and passed within 6 minutes. Such pro-forma "certification" is testimony to the low standards required by NIH for "ethical research certification" demonstrates the cynicism underlying the current "research protection system."
As recent investigative reports in the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press have revealed, greed and corrupt research practices have engulfed the NIH. And much as
"Stratton officials turned a blind eye to unethical cancer research practices and punished those who spoke out against them" so did NIH administrators.
Associated Press
February 6, 2005
IN HARM'S WAY
Abuses Endangered Veterans in Cancer Drug Experiments
By DEBORAH SONTAG
ALBANY - Carl M. Steubing, a decorated Battle of the Bulge veteran whose experience of war made him a pacifist but also instilled in him a zest for living life at full tilt, took his diagnosis of gastroesophageal cancer in 2001 as a challenge. With a thatch of white hair and a rich baritone voice, Mr. Steubing, at 78, was not ready to succumb to illness. A retired music educator and wedding photographer, he remained active as a church choir director, expert cook, painter, golfer and fisherman. He was married to a woman 24 years his junior, and they had seven children and three grandchildren between them.
Mr. Steubing jumped at the chance to participate in an experimental drug study at the Stratton Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albany, believing it offered him the hope of surviving longer. The research coordinator, Paul H. Kornak, told Mr. Steubing that he was "just a perfect specimen," with the body of a man half his age, according to Jayne Steubing, Mr. Steubing's widow. He was not, though. Because of a previous cancer and poor kidney function,
Mr. Steubing was not even eligible to participate in the experiment, according to government documents. Mr. Kornak, however, brushed that obstacle aside. He altered Mr. Steubing's medical records, according to prosecutors, and enrolled him in the study. He also posed as a doctor. In 2001, Mr. Steubing endured about six periodic treatments with an aggressive three-drug chemotherapy combination. Each infusion made him violently ill and forced his hospitalization. He died in March 2002.
Last month, at the federal courthouse in Albany, Mrs. Steubing glared at Mr. Kornak, 53, as he pleaded guilty to fraud, making false statements and criminally negligent homicide in the death of an Air Force veteran, James DiGeorgio. When Mr. Kornak admitted to falsifying the medical data of "subject initials CMS" - Carl M. Steubing - Mrs. Steubing's face crumpled. Mr. Kornak, who is scheduled to be sentenced in May, also agreed to cooperate in a widening investigation of the hospital's cancer research program. From 1999 to 2003, when he worked there, scores of veterans were, at the least, put at risk. But allegations of carelessness, fraud and patient abuse in the hospital's cancer research program predated Mr. Kornak, and
employees say that administrators not only dismissed their concerns, but harassed them for standing up for the veterans.
"Research violations were a way of life at Stratton for 10 years," said Jeffrey Fudin, a pharmacist at the hospital. "Stratton officials turned a blind eye to unethical cancer research practices and punished those who spoke out against them. The whole Kornak episode could have been prevented."
It was also a culture whose descent into criminality forced the Department of Veterans Affairs nationwide to reckon with what an internal memorandum in 2003 described as "systemic weaknesses in the human research protections program, especially in studies funded by industry." Excluding simple chart reviews, about 80 percent of the department's human research is financed by industry. The private sector pumps considerable cash into the system. In Albany, it accounted for $500,000 of the $1.15 million in research funding in 2004.
Mr. Kornak, who declined to be interviewed, does not appear to have derived financial gain from his fraud.
The Albany hospital's research program, however, stood to benefit from the enrollment of patients, pulling in $5,000 from the drug company Aventis for Mr. Steubing's participation. Although veterans knew him as "Dr. Kornak," Mr. Kornak was not licensed to practice medicine. Mrs. Steubing first learned this a year after her husband's death when she read an article in The Times Union of Albany.
A patient with coronary disease, for instance, was enrolled in a study that excluded heart patients because of a risk of hemorrhages. A patient with impaired renal function was administered a drug toxic to kidneys that probably contributed to his death, the agency said. "It kills me to think that the V.A. system deceived us," said Mrs. Steubing, the director of an upstate school for emotionally troubled children. "You see these youngsters at Walter Reed now and everybody's raving about the care they get. Well, Carl was one of those kids once, with a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart. And at the end of his life, his treatment was the antithesis of what you see on TV. It was such a betrayal."
In 2001, Mr. DiGeorgio, 71, declined precipitously and
died within two weeks of being infused with experimental drugs that he should not have been given. "My husband trusted and confided in the V.A. in Albany, and he wouldn't go nowhere else," Judith DiGeorgio, his widow, said. "It's a disgrace what they did to him."
Both Mrs. Steubing and Mrs. DiGeorgio have sued Mr. Kornak, Dr. Holland and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Mrs. Steubing's complaint, in a class-action suit, says that veterans were treated like "guinea pigs."
Veterans, many unable to afford private health care, are a particularly captive and altruistic pool of subjects, "easy marks," said Alan Milstein, a lawyer for Mrs. Steubing.
And the department's huge, taxpayer-financed health care system, despite reports of significant improvements in quality of care, has struggled with issues of mismanagement. These problems include persistent complaints about abuse of power, cronyism and reprisals against whistle-blowers.
Speaking Up, to No Avail: Years before Mr. Kornak arrived at the Albany hospital in 1999, Mr. Fudin, a clinical pharmacist there, started expressing his concerns about the treatment of cancer patients.
The former pharmacy manager, Anthony Mariano, shared his subordinate's concerns. "Every violation, I hand-delivered packets of information to the chief of research, threw them down on his desk and demanded he do something to stop the research," Mr. Mariano said.
Instead, Mr. Fudin and Mr. Mariano found themselves under internal investigation. In 1996, Mr. Fudin was accused of patient abuse for refusing to dispense a certain cancer therapy. Mr. Fudin said he thought the therapy amounted to unsafe experimentation on patients. He was cleared of the charge, faced a second charge and again was cleared.
Claiming harassment and reprisal for whistle-blowing, Mr. Fudin filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency intended to protect federal employees. In late 1996, Veterans Affairs and Mr. Fudin reached a settlement. The department agreed to sponsor him for a doctorate in pharmacy by paying his tuition ($21,986) and giving him a flexible work schedule.
Both Mr. Fudin and Mr. Mariano faced additional internal investigations. Mr. Fudin was dismissed in 2001, and an administrative law judge ordered him reinstated in 2002.
Mr. Mariano, meanwhile, was criticizing a cost-saving drug substitution policy involving hypertension medication that he contended was harming patients who suffered from congestive heart failure. In 1999, after he published an article in a federal medical journal questioning the department's drug policies, he was, at one point, reassigned from the pharmacy to a locked psychiatric ward and given no duties. Eventually, after a complicated legal process, Mr. Mariano said, he resigned under pressure in 2001, and he now works as a pharmacist for Wal-Mart. Mr. Fudin and Mr. Mariano served as grand marshals for Albany's Memorial Day Parade in 2003,
selected by local veterans honoring what they described as the men's courage in blowing the whistle. Some veterans wore T-shirts emblazoned with whistles and, on a rainy May day, blew whistles as they marched.
Convicted, Then Hired:
In 1993 in Harrisburg, Pa., Judge William W. Caldwell of United States District Court sentenced Mr. Kornak to a $2,500 fine and three years of probation
for forging his credentials to obtain a medical license. Apparently, Mr. Kornak's history of fraud began with the falsification of a college transcript, and lie followed lie until he lost a medical license in Iowa, was denied one in New Jersey and was arrested in Pennsylvania. "As we all know, a house built on sand will eventually fall, and a career whose foundation is built on deception likewise has fallen," Judge Caldwell said. "I think the conviction for this offense is going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Mr. Kornak to pursue a medical career."
It was 1999. Dr. William Hrushesky, then the chief oncologist, interviewed Mr. Kornak, according to The Medical Research Law and Policy Report, a trade publication. (Dr. Hrushesky did not respond to inquiries from The New York Times.) Mr. Kornak told Dr. Hrushesky that he had lost his medical license because he could not document a year of medical school in Poland, according to the journal.
Mr. Kornak "gave us a r�sum� with an M.D. on it and a lot of gaps," Dr. Hrushesky told the journal. "We decided to give him a chance."
Dr. Hrushesky also said he assumed that the research institute, a foundation that oversees industry grants for research, checked Mr. Kornak's credentials before hiring him. (Eventually, Mr. Kornak was hired away from the foundation by the veterans department itself.)
But at that point, the Veterans Affairs system did not require much background or credential checking for health professionals other than for physicians and dentists, and the system did not double-check to make sure that its hospitals actually did the required screening of doctors, according to a General Accounting Office report issued last year.
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I was unaware of any of this - until just shortly before my DH passed away.. There is much more information about this particular VA hospital - as well as others - available online if you do a search for them..
I had hoped that this particular scandal would do something to improve conditions at Stratton, but my cousin's reasons for walking away from her position are a clear indication that veterans still aren't receiving the kind of care that they should be..
Again - I'm sorry to hijack your thread, but it's important for people to be aware that this particular VA hospital - as well as many others around the country - continue to have very, very serious issues.. It can literally be a matter of "life or death", so I hope you will forgive me for this lengthy post.. 
- in spite of being in a VA hospital 
.. 
that the VA sent him home. 
