Maryland Board of Physicians: entrapment 101

Maryland Board of Physicians: entrapment 101

Physicians in Maryland are left dimensionless when they seek to understand the boundaries medical licensure imposes on them. Over the last fifteen years the Maryland Board of Physicians has failed to promulgate guidelines and regulatory structure that licensees can view to know the limits of their practice endeavors.  Medical Practice is a complex activity guided by an extraordinary knowledge base, a keen intellect and a profound ability to make appropriate decisions. The latter may explain why there are so many more lawyers. For nearly a decade the Maryland Board of Physicians has engaged private medical organizations to perform medical chart review. The hired guns from these concerns use their own rules to review medical records, not those the medical board was mandated to create. Many of these medical experts have specious credentials, some do not have “any” training in the specific field they are reviewing. As a result a physician can lose his medical license never knowing the playbook or the actors forcibly taking his license from him. Forget due process that is a word that law students learn, but a forgotten concept by Maryland’s physician board. As a result before a physician has been able to review charges against him/her, hire an attorney (you would probably do better defending yourself) and managed a response the Medical Board has leaked their attack strategy on you to the media. Your reputation is quickly diminished to zero, the little money you have saved is now in the pocket of your personal Perry Mason and your colleagues want nothing to do with you. The circumstances surrounding the loss of Dr. Mark Medei’s medical license exemplifies the actions of a rogue medical board that made this physician a cause celebre before he could utter one word of defense. Details released to the public concerning his practice pattern, patient population and surgical proclivities are sketchy. We have been left in the void how his own colleagues approached the review of each of his cases at the Hospital level. Innocent until proven guilty is still a precept even under the Obama administration and it should apply equally in Maryland. Yet the Medical Board manipulated their media releases to make themselves look like the good guys when they are far from it. In other articles I have discussed how medical license administrative reviews, at the Office of Administrative Hearings, are skewed in favor of the medical board. Maryland’s Attorney General’s representatives not only have rapports with these politically appointed judges, they have outright lied and manipulated evidence/testimony to obtain outcomes positive to the Board. Dr. Medei was victimized by a system that is ripe for abuse by those who are looking to move up the food chain. He is entitled to a full hearing outside the politics of a medical board that has had a torrent of its own problems, as recently noted in scathing report by the Maryland legislature. Before the Maryland Board of Physicians points any more fingers at physicians; its entire staff should be overturned, it should seek appropriate counsel from outside the Attorney General’s Office, find specialists whose knowledge base is compatible with the medical records they are reviewing and similar to the State Bar keep proceeding confidential until they are absolutely certain the physician in question is guilty of the charges laid at his/her door. In the event Dr. Medei’s former patients can prove they were harmed, they may be entitled to some compensation. On the other side, if the suits against Dr. Medei are frivolous he should sue the plaintiff and counsel for double the amount he is being sued. My question is: how many lives have Dr. Medei saved, Hundreds or may be thousands? Perhaps the Baltimore Sun should expend a little more energy looking for positive actions by physicians instead of seeking anything that would debase the medical profession. Mark Davis MD, President of Healthnets Review Services, advisor to the media and others on health related issues. platomd@gmail.com, http//:www.markdavismd.com