Maryland Board of Physicians confrontational approach to governing

Maryland Board of Physicians confrontational approach to governing

Maryland Board of Physicians seems to have touched many lives, unfortunately not in a positive manner. Many physicians have contacted me after a series of articles, written about this administrative entity, appeared in the Baltimore Examiner. A flood of horror stories so profound one could question why anyone would want to pursue a medical education. Maryland Legislature’s release of an audit of the Board of Physicians is an excellent first step in bringing them back into alignment with state law and mandate. Lack of transparency has allowed the Board to work outside the framework established by the state legislature to inflict a massive amount of harm on the physicians they victimize. Determined to improve their number of physician sanctions, as stated by their departing executive director Irving Pinder, every incident or indiscretion by a licensee would be treated as major threat to the citizens of Maryland. Stories abound that physicians were denied; hearings, due process rights, meetings with the entire Board membership, the ability to present exculpatory evidence and other rights embedded in Maryland law. More egregious many of the physicians engaged to review their colleagues had less than stellar records themselves. Physicians who were forced into a hearing before an administrative judge found even when they won, the Board reversed the findings and sanction them. Indisputably, the present Board of Physicians has harmed many physicians’ careers and is not up to the challenge when a real medical threat comes their way. Two points should be mentioned here: 1) physicians who presented their cases pro se always lost even when the facts were 100% in their favor and 2) The Appellate Courts will rubberstamp any fabrication the Maryland Board of Physicians presents to them. The system is wired so that a physician must spend his lifesavings and more to defend his reputation and license in the event he/she wants justice to prevail in the case they are presenting to the Courts. Democracy is not democracy when there is no money to spread around. Please review the links, these articles enhance and expand on the information presented in this one. Mark Davis, M.D. author of Demons of Democracy and President of Healthnets Review Services, platomd@gmail.com