Maryland Board of Physicians from Bad to Worse

Maryland Board of Physicians: from Bad to Worse

Maryland Board of Physicians has touched many lives, unfortunately not in a positive manner. Coincident with several articles I wrote for the Baltimore Examiner, detailing the unscrupulous nature of this Board, the Maryland Legislature released a derogatory report against this entity in 2011. This report was entitled, Sunset Review: Evaluation of the State Board of Physicians and Related Health Advisory Committees. Embodied in its pages was supposed to be the framework from which the Board would improve its functions and effectuate processes that were honest and consistent with its written regulatory structure. Instead the Board went in another direction. In a series of deceptive reports to the Maryland Legislature over the years following the release of the Sunset Review the Board omitted its failures exemplifying a false front as stated in this article. Managed by lawyers, from the top down, due process has been cast into the fire as this Board cherry picks which laws it will follow.

Medical Boards have come under increasing scrutiny over the last decade. Both the Texas and Arizona Boards have assaulted physicians in merciless manners resulting in loss of licensure for hundreds of physicians who did nothing more than have an MD after their names. State Legislatures woke up and cleansed the slate of characters that managed these administrative entities. Maryland Board’s incessant misuse of standards of care to entrap physicians is a tragedy that needs correction too. In the author’s case the Maryland Board spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and an entire decade to rid the state of this physician over paper compliance issues. Time has come for the Maryland Legislature to investigate this corrupt entity and rid the Board of it’s over dependence on lawyers.

Maryland’s Legislature has taken a step back in its oversight of the Maryland Board of Physicians. Last time I looked physicians were also citizens of the state. Hence they deserved certain due process rights. Appearance of due process is not due process. The Board along with its attack dog the Attorney General’s Office have a routine they follow to keep physicians from their full rights. Through convoluted legalese physicians have had a rough time defending themselves in administrative hearings. The Board’s attorneys have developed strategies to keep physicians from presenting expert witnesses, exculpatory evidence and patient testimony. Case number DHMH SBP-71-07-05227 Mark Davis MD hearing before an administrative court exposes the outright suppression of a physician’s right to defend himself appropriately. The transcript should be read by any physician forced to participate in this Soviet style hearing before a state appointed judge.

With the failure of the Nikita Levy case, the failure to oversee excessive opioid prescribing and the misuse to standards of care to target certain physicians the Maryland Legislature should be compelled to take an independent review of the Board. This should be a review by people who are not friends or associates of the Board as the most recent review by its University connections. In a future article we will review why the Maryland Board of Physicians allowed Nikita Levy case to be hidden from view until it spilled over into the media.

Mark Davis MD

platomd@gmail.com

medicalboardusa.com

Wind energy: Maryland's next fiasco

Wind energy: Maryland’s next fiasco

 

Governor O’Malley is hot to dump hundreds of millions into wind technologies, which are neither perfected nor economical. His green agenda will only generate red in the event the state of Maryland moves forward with this folly. The proposed project entails building floating wind generating stations miles off the coast of Ocean City Maryland. Estimates from O’Malley’s crack team of experts believe this project would eventually extract up to 200 megawatts of power from the wind when these devices are fully functional. Wind energy is unreliable, costs to generate one megawatt of power are staggering and the infrastructure to get such a leviathan project off the ground will cost billions not hundreds of millions as suggested by the Governor. The best manner in which to view this project: think of a Solyndra on steroids. There exists an enormous bulk of literature on wind technologies displaying its impracticality for use in large populated areas. Maryland’s Executive branch is selling this folly to the State legislature and the General Public with creative accounting techniques. Ratepayers will be requested to fork out an estimated $1.50 per month, if you can suspend disbelief while you consider this number. Cost overruns by projects proposed and implemented by Democrats are not uncommon. The Big Dig, a highway/tunnel project in Boston was originally budgeted at approximately 2.8 billion. When the project was finally completed, ten years later than expected, its price tag was 15 billion dollars. A complicated series of unforeseen events triggered this project’s elevated costs and time delays including; very poor workmanship, unions and their selective work rules, double and triple overtime payments, poor quality materials, constant political interference, design flaws, deaths due to accidents and much more. Maryland’s ill-conceived wind project will have many of the same problems, which will intrinsically have its own set of cost overruns and time delays. The proposed legislation will have new entitlements for the Afro-American community, which include allowing minority investors to selectively buy into this project. Additionally, the plan provides a 10 million dollar fund to assist minority businesses so they can participate in supply chain economics of this horrifically conceived project. Many more questions arise than can be answered here. Who will get these jobs? Is the selective minority funding constitutional? Who will be accountable when the costs for this proposed project run into the billions? Who will benefit from Maryland’s newest proposed disaster: state workers and companies or out of state entities? In the event there is any sanity left in the Maryland State Legislature they should vote this tragedy down. Maryland does not need its own Solyndra, we have had too many already. Mark Davis MD, platomd@gmail.com, www.healthnetsreviewservices.com

Maryland's Medical Board: What went wrong

Maryland’s Medical Board: What went wrong

Maryland’s Board of Physicians has seen better days. Recent changes in its membership composition have turned it into little more than a neighborhood watch group. Its former expertise has evaporated, to make way for the present politically correct entity that has clearly and unapologetically flouted the very laws that empower them. Recently, the medical board has come under fire for its lax procedures, disregard for due process, failure to follow legislative mandates and sundry other issues uncovered by a legislative audit. Physicians no longer can look to the medical board for guidance in the course of their practices because this administrative entity has not promulgated any rules of procedure in the last decade. Though Maryland citizens have a right to competent medical personnel, this should not preclude physicians from obtaining unbiased, appropriate and legitimate review when their abilities are questioned. Maryland’s legislative audit was superficial, yet alarming. The physician community was aware of many of its findings for years.  Statutes written to provide a level of fairness to physicians during a review process have not been instituted. As a result a physician can now lose his/her medical license based on the word of one physician, who may not be in the specialty of the doctor under review contrary to Maryland law. This is exemplified in the case of Mark Davis, MD whose medical license is pending revocation. The medical board should have its charter revoked, and Dr. Davis’ case should be reviewed because of the illicit manner in which it was managed. Legislators are calling for an external review of the Board and plan to engage the services of a physician from the University of Maryland. This is a big mistake. The politically active doctor they have in mind will white-wash the mess the retiring director Irving Pinder is leaving behind. Maryland Board of Physicians needs to be reconstituted. All of its procedures should come under review and present actions against medical personnel should be put in abeyance until the public is allowed transparency into the board’s procedures and practices. Mark Davis, MD president of Healthnets Review Services, platomd@gmail.com, www.markdavismd.com

Maryland Board of Physicians' illicit activities

Maryland Board of Physicians’ illicit use of authority

Maryland Board of Physicians no longer functions under the canopy of Maryland Law. Legislative mandates have very little meaning to those who believe they are beyond reproach. Maryland Legislature’s recent audit of this administrative entity, confirmed what many of us already knew, that it either cherry picks which laws to follow or ignores them completely. Maryland Board of Physicians was reconstituted in 2003 increasing its membership to 21 from 15. Presently 40% of those who serve on this entity are not physicians, diluting its expertise significantly. In an attempt to fill the void, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office imbued its authority throughout the Board’s structure, providing misleading and misguided counsel to this diminished entity. Maryland Board of Physicians failure to promulgate rules and regulations concerning physician practice is a point of contention for those who are forced to come before it. More egregious, this failure impedes physicians from certain due process rights provided to them by the Maryland Legislature. When confronted with these concerns, lawyers from the Attorney General’s Office dance around the issue, always ready with a judge in their back pocket to resolve the problem in their favor. In 2003 the Maryland legislature mandated that TWO physicians must agree that a doctor under review has deviated from the standard of care before a charge against him/her can be drawn. In the event they are in disagreement a third physician must be brought in to reconcile review process.  Eight years after this mandate was written, it still has not been implemented. Maryland Board of Physicians is now permitted to revoke a physician’s license based on the word of one medical doctor, who does not need to be in the specific field of the person being reviewed. The Board was able to get around this mandate because of their friends in the Appellate courts who rubberstamp whatever they bring before it. Mark Davis, MD faces revocation of his medical license because of the medical board’s illicit activities and the latter scenario presented. How many other physicians have been exposed to the Maryland Board of Medicines willy-nilly approach to the law is uncertain. This board Mark should be disbanded and those who stepped outside specific legislative mandates  prosecuted.  Davis, MD president of Healthnets Review Services, platomd@gmail.com, www.markdavismd.com