World 'not ready' for suicide surgeon

A groundbreaking US heart surgeon, who killed himself on St Stephen's Day, wrote a suicide note in which he complained “The world is not ready for me”.

Jonathan Drummond-Webb, 45, was chief of paediatric and congenital cardiac surgery at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Last year he performed the first successful implant of a life-saving miniature heart pump in a child.

In his five-page hand-written suicide note, he railed against some of his colleagues at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where he worked before he came to Arkansas.

“Every day my living hell!!” the note, which is difficult to decipher, read. “These people don’t care. I have a gift to save babies. The world is not ready for me.”

Suzanne Patton, a spokeswoman for Arkansas Children’s Hospital, said the thoughts expressed in the suicide note were out of character for the surgeon.

“He was not the Jonathan Drummond-Webb we loved and respected,” Patton said. “Had we known of his circumstances, measures would have been taken to ensure he received appropriate professional intervention.”

Drummond-Webb also said he loved his wife and his cat in the note. He made it clear that he had taken his own life and did not want an autopsy. No autopsy was performed, but blood and urine samples were taken for tests.

During his life, the surgeon was an outspoken proponent for organ donation, but the way he committed suicide did not allow his organs to be harvested.

He wrote on his arm in ink, No Post Mortem. And the note went on: “To the Coroner, I took an overdose and there is no need to violate my body.”