Dr. Christensen was an excellent family doctor who cared more about his patients than he cared about making money. When our son was 8 years old he broke his arm. We took him to Dr. Christensen and he cleaned the wound and took x-rays. Because the arm was cut to the bone, Dr. Christensen suggested we take him to Missoula Bone & Joint. He called and told MB&J that we were coming and had things all set up so that when we arrived they were able to take us right in. A couple different times we asked Dr. Christensen for a bill, but he said he didn’t fix our son’s arm so he would not take any money for his services.
There are many stories of how he opened his office on the weekend for an emergency or came to a person’s home to help someone who was unable to get out of bed. This is the kind of doctor people need.
I was at the trial several different times. I was surprised that after a witness was sworn into honesty that some of them were still obviously lying and were not cut off. These drug addicts who were brought to the stand admitted that they had lied to the doctor to get the drugs they wanted and then overdosed themselves or sold the drugs. They were treated as if they were the honest ones and the doctor whose intentions were to help was treated like a criminal.
The two patients who died from drug overdose are responsible for their own deaths. It is time for people to take personal responsibility. It is the patients responsibility to take the proper daily dose not the doctors.
The prosecuting attorney tried to smear Dr. Christensen into the ground every way he could and a lot of the things he brought up were not even relevant to what the case was supposed to be about.
When someone poaches a big game animal his license is taken for three years. If someone has a commercial driver’s license and he gets three traffic violations they lose their commercial driver’s license. If an aircraft mechanic intentionally violates the standards they lose their license. In all three cases they intentionally violated the law, but are not sent to prison. In Dr. Christensen’s case he had no intention of his patients overdosing on their medication, or had the intent of breaking the law, but they would like to throw him in prison for life.
My opinion is that they should round up all of Christensen’s false accusers and make them pay all of the court costs and let Dr. Christensen return to his practice as family physician.
We need to encourage more small family doctors who can give heartfelt, personal care to their patients, which is something you rarely see in large hospitals. We have had better urgent care in Dr. Christensen’s office than we have had in the emergency room.
Judge Jeff Langton was given a second chance when he was intentionally driving under the influence. He was given his driver’s license and his job as judge back. Now it is time to show some mercy and give Dr. Christensen his practice back.
Gabe & Michelle Leonardi
Hamilton