Medical Boards Let Physicians Practice Despite Drug Abuse
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With apologies to the fine doctors among the JoeUsers community, this is an issue that really must be addressed.
From The Washington Post. Headline is linked.
SPECIAL TREATMENT: Disciplining Doctors
Medical Boards Let Physicians Practice Despite Drug Abuse
By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 10, 2005; Page A01
First of three articles
Over the past 20 years, John F. Pholeric Jr. struggled on and off with cocaine addiction, cycled in and out of rehab and was convicted of a felony. During that time, he also practiced medicine.
Pholeric, 55, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, admitted snorting cocaine "three to four times per week" in his office in 1999. He stole drugs from hospitals where he worked and wrote more than 40 fraudulent prescriptions for his own use, according to Virginia and District medical board records.
Several times, the Virginia Board of Medicine took up Pholeric's case. But it never took away his license to practice.
Pholeric, who retired last month after he was questioned by a Washington Post reporter about his substance abuse, is not alone. Virginia Board of Medicine records show that an Arlington ophthalmologist who performed cataract surgery under the influence, his hands shaking and his speech slurred, still has his license. So does a Loudoun County gastroenterologist who deprived his colonoscopy patients of painkillers and injected himself with the drugs between operations.
Scores of physicians in the area and across the country have been given repeated chances to practice, despite well-documented drug and alcohol problems, a Post investigation has found. They have stayed in business with the permission of state medical boards and hospitals, even when many have relapsed multiple times and posed a danger to patients, records show.
When physicians were disciplined, the process sometimes was so slow that they moved to another state and became licensed before a paper trail surfaced detailing their transgressions.
According to a review of medical board records, 74 doctors in the District, Maryland and Virginia were disciplined for substance abuse from 1999 through 2004. In five other cases, the boards found that doctors violated the law by abusing drugs or alcohol but took no action despite the doctors' repeated substance abuse. In nine other cases, the physicians surrendered their licenses for the time being to avoid investigation and possible punishment, according to board records.
In the 74 cases in which doctors were disciplined, most had their licenses suspended temporarily. Ten doctors were reprimanded and five others were placed on probation, but their licenses were not suspended.
Seven of the disciplined doctors have been convicted of felony drug crimes. One doctor who was convicted in Virginia and served time in prison once again has a license to practice in the state.
... more at linked article
Argh! If I was this incompetent or negligent in doing my job, I'd be fired on the spot and I'd have a reputation that would follow me wherever I tried to go, but in the medical profession, second only (probably) to the Legal profession, incompetence is hidden away, swept under the rug and other members of the profession are protected by their brethren and given chance after chance to police themselves and clean up themselves.
I'm sorry, but this is completely unacceptable. I know there are many fine and wonderful doctors out there, some that even have occassionally made mistakes. Not willful negligence, but accidents. Instances that deserve a second chance or more. But people that clearly abuse those chances and are willfully negligent must face the music and pay the piper.
There simply must be more civilian/government oversight of people in the medical profession (in the legal profession too for that matter) so that the public can be made aware of who is serving them, and what issues have come in the doctors past. Patients deserve to know the full history of the credentials and experience of the people that are caring for them, and they deserve to know that they are getting care from competent individuals that have not made these egregious errors in personal judgement.
I'd type more, but I'm too sick to write anything else and I fear going to the doctor lest I face one that is less than competent.
From The Washington Post. Headline is linked.
SPECIAL TREATMENT: Disciplining Doctors
Medical Boards Let Physicians Practice Despite Drug Abuse
By Cheryl W. Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 10, 2005; Page A01
First of three articles
Over the past 20 years, John F. Pholeric Jr. struggled on and off with cocaine addiction, cycled in and out of rehab and was convicted of a felony. During that time, he also practiced medicine.
Pholeric, 55, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, admitted snorting cocaine "three to four times per week" in his office in 1999. He stole drugs from hospitals where he worked and wrote more than 40 fraudulent prescriptions for his own use, according to Virginia and District medical board records.
Several times, the Virginia Board of Medicine took up Pholeric's case. But it never took away his license to practice.
Pholeric, who retired last month after he was questioned by a Washington Post reporter about his substance abuse, is not alone. Virginia Board of Medicine records show that an Arlington ophthalmologist who performed cataract surgery under the influence, his hands shaking and his speech slurred, still has his license. So does a Loudoun County gastroenterologist who deprived his colonoscopy patients of painkillers and injected himself with the drugs between operations.
Scores of physicians in the area and across the country have been given repeated chances to practice, despite well-documented drug and alcohol problems, a Post investigation has found. They have stayed in business with the permission of state medical boards and hospitals, even when many have relapsed multiple times and posed a danger to patients, records show.
When physicians were disciplined, the process sometimes was so slow that they moved to another state and became licensed before a paper trail surfaced detailing their transgressions.
According to a review of medical board records, 74 doctors in the District, Maryland and Virginia were disciplined for substance abuse from 1999 through 2004. In five other cases, the boards found that doctors violated the law by abusing drugs or alcohol but took no action despite the doctors' repeated substance abuse. In nine other cases, the physicians surrendered their licenses for the time being to avoid investigation and possible punishment, according to board records.
In the 74 cases in which doctors were disciplined, most had their licenses suspended temporarily. Ten doctors were reprimanded and five others were placed on probation, but their licenses were not suspended.
Seven of the disciplined doctors have been convicted of felony drug crimes. One doctor who was convicted in Virginia and served time in prison once again has a license to practice in the state.
... more at linked article
Argh! If I was this incompetent or negligent in doing my job, I'd be fired on the spot and I'd have a reputation that would follow me wherever I tried to go, but in the medical profession, second only (probably) to the Legal profession, incompetence is hidden away, swept under the rug and other members of the profession are protected by their brethren and given chance after chance to police themselves and clean up themselves.
I'm sorry, but this is completely unacceptable. I know there are many fine and wonderful doctors out there, some that even have occassionally made mistakes. Not willful negligence, but accidents. Instances that deserve a second chance or more. But people that clearly abuse those chances and are willfully negligent must face the music and pay the piper.
There simply must be more civilian/government oversight of people in the medical profession (in the legal profession too for that matter) so that the public can be made aware of who is serving them, and what issues have come in the doctors past. Patients deserve to know the full history of the credentials and experience of the people that are caring for them, and they deserve to know that they are getting care from competent individuals that have not made these egregious errors in personal judgement.
I'd type more, but I'm too sick to write anything else and I fear going to the doctor lest I face one that is less than competent.