Houston Chronicle, July 26, 2007 GALVESTON - Former colleagues of Dr. Anna Pou at the University of Texas Medical Branch say they are not surprised by a Louisiana grand jury's refusal to indict her on charges of mercy killing in a hospital stranded by floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina. Doctors and nurses who worked with Pou at UTMB have supported her since she was arrested last summer along with two nurses. Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti concluded that they injected a lethal combination of drugs in four patients at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. Pou and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry voluntarily remained with the seriously ill patients as temperatures reached 100 degrees in a hospital without electricity or water for three desperate days after the 2005 hurricane. "I found her to be very dedicated and to be a very good doctor and it just flew in the face of common sense that the person I had worked with had those charges filed against her," said Dr. Terry McNearney, a UTMB rheumatologist who had a professional relationship with Pou. Pou was director of UTMB's division of head and neck surgery before accepting a job in 2004 as associate professor in the department of head and neck surgery at Louisiana State University "I think justice has been served," said Deborah Pearcy, a UTMB operating nurse manager who worked with Pou. "There isn't anybody who is a more thorough patient advocate than Anna Pou, and these charges filed against her were absolutely ludicrous." Debbie Vassallo, assistant operating room nurse manager, said, "I had complete faith that she would be exonerated."