Maryland Board of Medicine: Death to Due Process

Maryland Board Physicians: death of due process

Recent articles in this column concerning the Maryland Board of Physicians have generated a landslide of emails to this author from the physician populace. Relating stories of abusive peer review, these practitioners of the medical arts have been prosecuted civilly for a gamut of accusations. Collectively these legal interactions have a few glaring similarities. Due process has been abbreviated, circumvented and or abrogated totally. Maryland Attorney General’s office aggressively pursues cases against physicians in the name of the Board of Physicians and they don’t like to lose. Well known to most physicians who have been under the hammer of scurrilous Board of Physician actions is the deficit of written guidelines promulgated to perform medical record reviews. Physicians are left in virtual limbo because the Board and its legal minions can create regulatory structure as they process cases against your favorite physician. Most physicians are unaware that a book of fictitious standards of care exists somewhere in the Board’s inner sanctum. Judicial fingers have attempted to pry this opus from the Board of Physicians’ grasp without success. Yet physicians are subjected to its tenets at nearly every inquisition. Reactive not proactive, the Board has trivialized the practice of medicine by micromanaging and second guessing physician decisions. Composed of a group of people that is 40% non-physician, this politicized entity has very little expertise in the very field they are empowered to regulate. With the release of the scorching Legislative Audit against those who manage the Board of Physicians, a deeper concern arises from the muck. Maryland Attorney General’s Office collectively is supposed to know Maryland Law and carry it out as written, unfortunately they don’t. Strong evidence exists that the highest legal officers in the state have distorted, misrepresented and even outright lied to receptive Maryland Courts when processing physician cases. More egregious, Maryland’s Appellate Courts have legislated from the bench bypassing clearly written Maryland Law and Mandate to give a win to the Board and its legal counsel. Those who reside in the two ivory towers of medical elitism believe they are safe from the gunners that target physicians outside their domains, they are wrong. History of the elite displays they can be victimized too.  Every physician should read this report (Sunset Review of the Maryland Board of Physicians and the Related Allied Health Advisory Committees) to learn how Maryland is carelessly and reprehensibly managing medical licensing. Physicians have very little protection from the deleterious hands of this entity since their Medical Society is completely impotent. Those of you foolishly paying dues to this organization, think twice. Hard times for medicine are here, we don’t need an irresponsible administrative authority to make those times worse. Mark Davis MD, author of Demons of Democracy, President of Healthnets Review Services. platomd@gmail.com