Patients of Dr. Arnold Smith are continuing to receive limited treatments from another physician at the North Central Mississippi Regional Cancer Center following Smith’s arrest Sunday.
Wilson Gaillard, administrator of the River Road clinic, said today that Dr. Roderick Givens is treating patients with radiation but not chemotherapy. New patients for Smith are not being accepted, he said.
Givens is a member of the cancer center staff and already sees about a quarter to the third of the patients, Gaillard said.
Greenwood police arrested Smith, 70, early Sunday morning and charged him with conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly plotting to kill Greenwood attorney Lee Abraham. The oncologist is being held without bond at the Leflore County Jail.
Gaillard said there are a lot of patients Smith has helped who think the world of him and are now frantic about what will happen to them as they battle cancer.
“Shocking. It’s all surreal. Everybody’s just kind of walking around here like zombies,” he said this morning.
“Certainly didn’t see this coming. I guess we’ll just have to see where the truth lies. Certainly not how we expected to spend our Monday. It’s an absolute nightmare.”
Law enforcement officials conducted a search of the cancer center from 9 p.m. to midnight Sunday, Gaillard said. They had searched Smith’s home on Grand Boulevard earlier Sunday evening.
• Contact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
