Doctors who treat solely the wealthy abandon not only equally needy patients, but also their own dreams of doing good.

Still, some have refused to operate and do autopsies and have abandoned patients with other problems upon learning the patients were infected with the AIDS virus.

They had had to abandon patients in intensive care.

Others physicians feel like they can't abandon patients who are unwilling to pay the additional fee.

This afternoon's rally was decorous, and the Connecticut State Medical Society, which organized the protest, was careful to say that doctors were not abandoning patients to attend.

He accused the agency of abandoning patients and risking more amputations, which he called "tragic" and a "travesty."

Critics have accused doctors who make the transition to a concierge practice from a regular one of abandoning patients who cannot afford to join up.

The former spokeswoman for the mission, Beatrice Lacoste, said, "It was like abandoning patients in a hospital."

Critics say the underlying problem is that the Chinese government has chosen to abandon patients who suffer from a disease that it still regards as an embarrassment.

Patients became desperate, as supplies of Botox were gradually consumed, forcing him to abandon patients who would have been due for their next injection.