Physician Discipline

Discover why Dr. Melinda Threlkeld's case at Methodist Charlton Medical Center raises questions with just 12 hours of CME after a tragic patient death.

When people hear about medical malpractice, they often think the story ends with a hospital discharge, a lawsuit, or a settlement headline. What they rarely see is what happens after, the daily vigilance, the fear, the permanent changes to a child’s body and a parent’s mind.

By Reasa Let’s be honest: if a parent ignored what this doctor ignored, they’d be in handcuffs. On December 23, 2023, we brought our 11-year-old son, Nicholas, to Methodist Southlake Medical Center with clear symptoms of a serious medical condition: vomiting, dizziness, high fever, and an inability to urinate. The ER physician, Dr. Teresa A. Proietti, DO, at Methodist Southlake was the ER doctor on staff. She ordered labs and reviewed his vital signs. What she saw should have

By Reasa On December 23, 2023, we took our 11-year-old son, Nicholas, to the ER at Methodist Southlake Medical Center because we trusted Methodist. He had a fever, was vomiting, dizzy, and couldn’t urinate. We were scared. But we believed he was in good hands. We trusted the hospital. We trusted their emergency room doctor, Dr. Teresa A. Proietti, DO. We were wrong. Dr. Proietti never came to speak with us about Nicholas’s lab results. She had the nurse tell us that his labs

By Reasa It started with a cough. One minute, Nicholas was lying in his hospital bed. Next, he began coughing, then suddenly vomiting an entire pint of blood. I was holding the vomit bag. I caught it. And then I watched his face go pale as he looked at me, not panicked, but calm. So calm it scared me. Then he said: “Mom, can you see it? The Lamb of Jesus? I can see him. He’s a brown lamb.” He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t crying. He was seeing something beyond the rest of us. In t

Dr. Teresa Proietti, the ER physician who discharged Nicholas just before he went into septic shock, recently told Texas lawmakers that providers who “minimize abnormal results and send patients home” are dangerous. Her words—nearly a confession—mirror exactly what she did to my son. We’re making sure this contradiction is on record. When physicians say one thing and do another, families like ours pay the price. This fight isn’t over.