Personal Injury Law

Problems with State?s Lax Doctor Disciplinary Process

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

Official government efforts to ensure proper medical care for patients at the state level typically involves rules proscribing allowable conduct as well as clear procedures to ensure negligent doctors are prevented from harming more patients. Unfortunately, the second-prong of that approach is typically lacking.

St. Louis Today recently discussed that lax doctor disciplinary and oversight process in the state. For example, the story highlights the case of one doctor who botched eye procedures on a young infant girl. The child went in for surgery to fix a muscle in her left eye. But the doctor made a mistake and operated on the right eye. To cover up his error, the doctor lied to the family and claimed that another surgery was necessary. He then did the original procedure on the left eye. Afterwards, the doctor altered the girl?s charts to make it seem as if no mistake was made. The girl is now legally blind in one and has only minimal sight in the other.

After all of this was uncovered the doctor was reported to the state?s Board of Registration, but little to nothing was done to sanction the surgeon for his conduct. The doctor was allowed to keep seeing patients without missing a single day, and he received only a silent reprimand in his file.

As the newspaper uncovered, this lenient treatment for error-prone doctors seem to be a trend for the state?s regulatory body.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on January 10, 2011 (boomark / email).