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Public Citizen Doctor Discusses questionabledoctors.org

Aired September 04, 2002 - 14:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: So do want to examine your doctor's professional history before you go in for a checkup? Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, a group called Public Citizen is posting the names of doctors who have been disciplined and are still practicing.
Joining us now to talk about questionabledoctors.org, Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen.

Hello, Dr. Wolfe

DR. SIDNEY WOLFE, PUBLIC CITIZEN: Good afternoon.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's clear something up: Are these doctors simply facing allegations, or have they been found responsible for malpractice, or even a crime?

WOLFE: What we have now is the names of 11,000 doctors in 27 states around the country who have had final actions taken against them. These are not just allegations; these are final disciplinary actions by state medical boards, in some cases by the federal government, Medicare -- in some cases, by DEA for narcotics, license violations. The kinds of offenses that they committed include substandard or negligent medical care; sexual abuse of patient; being convicted of crimes; misprescribing, overprescribing of drugs.

And yet, most of these doctors are still practicing. Example: A doctor in Texas was convicted and spent time in jail of four drive-by shootings of his former business partner -- never stopped from practicing. A doctor in California was caught drunk while he was taking care of patients -- still practicing today. Hundreds of doctors who sexually abused patients were fined; slapped on the wrist; in some cases, put on probation -- but most of them are still practicing today.

The point we're raising is would you go to a doctor who has had a final action taken against them for practicing poor medicine and who is practicing in the state where the state is really not doing an adequate job disciplining them? Many of these doctors, if they were practicing in a state like Arizona, which does a better job disciplining doctors, would be out of practice. And yet because they are practicing in the states that we have up on the Internet now, as of today and a couple of months ago for some of earlier states -- Texas, California, the New England states, Ohio, Michigan, Florida -- today, we have put up Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

So there are millions of patients in this country unwittingly going to doctors who have had final actions taken against them for fairly serious offenses, and yet people don't know about it. So questionabledoctors.org is a place you can scan through 11,000 doctors who have been disciplined in any of those 27 states...

PHILLIPS: Dr. Wolfe, have any patients died in the hands of these doctors?

WOLFE: A number of the offenses for which doctors were disciplined did involve patients' deaths. In one case, a doctor, I believe it was in Texas, was administering what was supposed to be just some mild outpatient anesthetic and killed a patient because he gave much too large a dose of these drugs that should be given in a smaller dose. There are a number of other examples of very bad...

PHILLIPS: But why are these doctors still practicing? I want to know why people can still go see these doctors. That scares me.

WOLFE: The answer that is too many state medical boards are not doing an adequate job of policing the profession. In Maryland, for example, there is a legal tie between the state medical board and the doctor's association, wherein the doctor's association gets to review the cases -- and guess what, a lot of times they do not think they are as serious as we and a lot of other people think they are.

So you've got a lot of doctors practicing in states, most of which don't do an adequate job disciplining doctors. At least, you can find out what the doctors did and make your own decision about whether the fact that they are that questionable should mean that you should look for another doctor or whatever.

PHILLIPS: So what needs to be done? I mean, you are coming out and saying patients have died in the hands of these doctors, yet you can actually go and see this doctor tomorrow for treatment. And it is on your Web site, they've been written up. It is documented that they have done something wrong. I can't believe they are still able to practice medicine

WOLFE: What needs to be done is that it needs to be made, in the best sense, a political issue. One of the worst states in the country several years ago was Arizona, and because of radio, television, newspaper reporters beating up on the medical board, which was the 38th from the top in terms of how often they disciplined doctors, they fired the board director, got more staffing and funding, and Arizona went from number 38 on our ranking every year to number 1. Arizona is disciplining many times more doctors than Florida, than Texas, than California and a lot of the other states that we have up there.

So what needs to be done is people need to realize that one of the most important functions of a state government is protecting patients from the relatively small number of doctors who shouldn't be practicing or should be under strict surveillance. One doctor may see 500, 1,000, 1,500 patients, so that just one doctor if they shouldn't be there but are there, can do an enormous amount of damage.

And it needs to be made a political issue. Every state where it has been made a political issue, the board has been able to get more funding and get better quickly and thereby protect patients in those states.

PHILLIPS: Dr. Sidney Wolfe, Public Citizen, once again -- www.questionabledoctors.org -- thank you, sir, for your time.

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