Doctors say they’re obligated under almost every circumstance to do all they can to save a life, but what if the challenge pits medical research against terminal patient care? 

Dr. Paul Muiselaar was the long standing head of the University of California at Davis neurosurgery department until 2012. He and a colleague used a last ditch experimental bacteria on three patients dying of brain cancer. 

“One patient was supposed to live for a few weeks and lived for a year, and one of her tumors disappeared.” said Dr. Paul Muizelaar. 

After all three patients died, UC Davis charged Dr. Muizelaar with code of conduct violations and accused him of defying directives and not disclosing unauthorized human research. Muizelaar resigned even though the patients families and the california medical center knew of and approved of everything.

“The hospital director knew about it, the dean know about it, everybody knew about it and was behind it.” Said Dr. Muizelaar. 

Now an investigation is underway due to political friction between the University of California at Davis and it’s $1.4 billion School of Medicine

“There was always controversy between the main campus and the med center, they did not get along too well.” said Dr. Muizelaar.

Ethical medical research and practice Marshall Health says comes from one of the world’s leading doctors now in West Virginia.

 They repeated their original findings… that Dr. Muizelaar did not comply with certain University policies and research regulations.