Anna Pou and James O’Bryant

Anna Pou and James O’Bryant’s relationship was both a sustained doctor–patient bond and a counterpoint to the allegations surrounding Pou’s work at Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina. When O’Bryant’s cancer returned and his treatment became more difficult, Pou continued to help care for him, including during periods when the investigation had disrupted her own medical career. O’Bryant and his wife, Brenda, trusted her despite the public accusations; their loyalty became an important source of support for Pou.

A relationship established before the crisis

O’Bryant had been Pou’s patient before Hurricane Katrina. By the time the account returns to their relationship, his cancer had recurred and was causing facial pain. A scan showed that the tumor had grown back behind his left eye. Another extensive operation was under consideration, but O’Bryant was uncertain whether he wanted to undergo it. Dan Nuss, the chairman of Pou’s department, believed he could remove the tumor, and O’Bryant agreed to let him try. Pou was to work alongside Nuss, reconstructing O’Bryant’s face after the tumor’s removal.

The couple’s circumstances extended beyond the hospital. On the later journey home after O’Bryant was discharged, they returned to Bogalusa, where Brenda connected her husband’s cancer to a chemical accident in the area in 1995. That suspicion was Brenda’s, not an established explanation for the illness. Her presence in the account also makes clear that Pou’s relationship with O’Bryant included an ongoing connection with the person helping him navigate his treatment.

A difficult operation and continued care

The operation took place on July 6. Pou and Nuss worked for many hours, removing tissue and checking samples under a microscope as they pursued the tumor. The scan had not shown that the cancer had invaded bone around a blood vessel that had previously been removed. Reaching all of the tumor would have required opening O’Bryant’s skull, an operation the surgeons believed he could not withstand. After twenty hours, they closed his face as best they could, leaving part of the tumor in place.

Pou’s care for O’Bryant continued after the operation. When she expected to be arrested, she gave up a planned long weekend in New Orleans with her mother and returned to Baton Rouge. She checked on O’Bryant in intensive care, spoke with his nurses, and sat with Brenda to console her. These acts took place as the investigation into Memorial’s deaths was moving toward the arrest of Pou and two nurses. Her attention to O’Bryant and Brenda therefore continued at the same time that her own future was becoming uncertain.

On the evening before Pou’s planned arrest, Brenda called her after O’Bryant had been discharged. A doctor in training had disturbed part of a scab while examining him, and Brenda later noticed that blood was pooling beneath his face. Pou advised her to apply something cold and take him to the nearest emergency room. She also asked to speak directly with the emergency physician, seeking information about O’Bryant’s condition. When the couple was later escorted from the emergency room, Pou stayed on the phone with Brenda so she could follow what was happening.

As O’Bryant’s condition worsened, Pou asked Nuss to come in and prepared the operating room. The surgical nurses arrived, and the team operated through the night. The emergency made the doctor–patient relationship concrete in a different way from the earlier planned procedure: Pou’s involvement was not limited to the role she had been assigned in the first operation. She was also the person Brenda called, the physician seeking answers from the emergency department, and the surgeon who helped organize the subsequent operation.

Trust amid public allegations

The investigation and media coverage gave the couple a second, more troubling context for their relationship with Pou. Reports described the case being built against her, including an allegation in an affidavit that Pou had said that lethal doses would be administered to LifeCare patients. Pou’s attorney, Rick Simmons, denied that she had committed criminal acts. The allegations remained a source of public dispute; they did not change the O’Bryants’ view of the doctor they knew.

Pou did not tell the couple what had happened at Memorial. She told them that her lawyer would not allow her to discuss it, while affirming her love for her patients and denying that she would harm them. The O’Bryants believed her rather than the accusations. Brenda, who worked at a lace factory, told coworkers she would not believe Pou had killed patients even if Pou herself confessed. Brenda’s confidence rested on her understanding of Pou as a Christian who sought God’s guidance. Their response was not evidence about the disputed events at Memorial; it shows how the family’s experience of Pou shaped their trust in her.

The bond after Pou’s arrest

Nearly six months after Pou’s arrest, O’Bryant faced another major operation for his facial cancer. Pou had stopped performing surgery and was occupied with teaching and administrative duties in Baton Rouge, helping revise Louisiana State University’s head-and-neck surgery training program after major teaching hospitals in New Orleans had closed. On a foggy day in late December, traffic made her worry that she might not reach the hospital before O’Bryant was taken to surgery. When she arrived, he was already on a transport gurney. He recognized her, sat up, and greeted her; she hugged him.

The O’Bryants’ welcome and continued confidence offered Pou support during a period of uncertainty. The book presents their circumstances as more serious than her own, yet they treated her with gratitude and reverence. Their connection endured without a full conversation about Memorial: legal limits kept Pou from discussing the case, while the couple did not seem to require that explanation in order to trust her. In this relationship, the public controversy and the private history of care remain side by side. O’Bryant’s repeated need for treatment brought Pou back into his life as his surgeon and supporter, while the family’s faith in her gave the disputed investigation a human counterpoint without resolving its questions.