It's Hard to Discipline Doctors in the State of Missouri

I once had a problem with being able to hear very well in my right ear. It felt like my Eustachian tube was all clogged up. I went to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist. He was an older fellow, about 70-years-old. He looked at my ear and told me that I needed surgery, the same kind of surgery that a lot of kids get when they have ear infections. I would have to wear a drain in my ear until the infection was cleared and the drain fell out.

I agreed to have the surgery the following Friday. Then I went home and started doing some research on the Internet about the good doctor. It turns out that he had botched a simple tonsillectomy operation a few years ago. The tonsils are simply bits of tissue that hang down at the back of the throat and tend to get inflamed. The solution is to simply remove them.

Well, the doctor removed too much tissue from one patient that he had operated on and she nearly bled to death in the middle of the night. When she had called him and told him about it, he said that it was OK and that kind of bleeding was normal. Eventually she had to go to the emergency room when it didn't stop. She won a malpractice case against him for $85,000.

I decided to get a second opinion. It turns out that I didn't need the surgery after all. In a couple of weeks the ear problem that I had resolved itself. But according to the records, the doctor in question made over $900,000 last year, probably from performing a lot of unnecessary surgeries.

Most doctors that I have met are good guys and care a lot about their patients, but there are a few bad apples in the bunch just like everyone else. And according to a recent report, Missouri is a good place to practice malpractice.

It seems that the board that polices doctors requires an extra step that most other states don't have to discipline them. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
"The Missouri board charged with protecting the public from dangerous doctors has limited authority to do so. Medical boards in almost every other state have absolute authority over their licensees. Missouri law gives the Board of Registration for the Healing Arts unilateral power to discipline a licensee in certain cases: when a doctor has been found guilty of a felony, had his license revoked in another state, failed to pay taxes or violated an agreement with the board."

In Missouri, in order for the board to take action in any other types of cases other than that listed above, the board has to get the licensee to agree to the terms of the discipline, or a hearing has to be held where the board has to argue the case and win.

Missouri requires the same procedures for all other professional licenses including other health care professionals besides doctors.

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/fitness/article_61728d96-df74-51d0-aa45-e2069b9a7dc5.html