Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 18:01:01 -0700

Group names 'questionable' doctors

Public Citizen book lists over 20,000 disciplined physicians

Dr. Sid Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's health research group, says patients have a right to know if their doctors have been convicted of a crime.

REUTERS

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - A doctor who used a patient's amputated foot in a crab trap and a surgeon who cut into the wrong side of a patient's brain are among more than 20,000 U.S. doctors named as "questionable" by a consumer's group on Tuesday.

The American Medical Association, which represents about 300,000 of the nation's 700,000 doctors, opposed opening the database.

PUBLIC CITIZEN said both doctors are still practicing medicine, along with others who have been disciplined for offenses ranging from having sex with patients to tax evasion.

The nonprofit group said patients have a right to know if their doctors have been convicted of a crime and urged Congress to pass laws making such information publicly available.

The 2000 edition of the book, published annually by Public Citizen, named 20,125 doctors and 28,000 actions against them.

"We found that well over 90 percent of them were very serious offenses," Dr. Sid Wolfe, head of Public Citizen's health research group, told a news conference.

"Doctors who have been convicted of crimes, doctors who have sexually abused patients ... doctors who misrepresent or over-prescribe drugs," Wolfe said.

"These, in my view ... are quite serious. Yet ... fewer than half the disciplinary actions were serious. The majority of these doctors who were disciplined for these serious offenses were never even temporarily taken out of practice," Wolfe said.

The group said the National Practitioner Data Bank, which carries

information on medical malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary action for use by state medical boards, health maintenance organizations and other groups, should be open to all.

"These data belong to the public and should be made public," Wolfe said.

In March the U.S. House of Representatives Commerce Committee, headed by Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Bliley, held hearings on the issue.

"He is going to introduce legislation in early September," a spokesman for Bliley said. "It will provide the information in context."

The spokesman added, "It is unconscionable that as consumers we have more comparative information about the used car we purchase or the snack foods we eat than the doctors in whose care we entrust our health and well-being." The American Medical Association, which represents about 300,000 of the nation's 700,000 doctors, opposes opening the database.

"It is inexcusable for the AMA to take the patronizing position that patients won't really understand this information," Wolfe said.

*Agencies responsible for licensing physicians in 40 states and the District of Columbia provide the names of doctors they discipline on their Web sites. The amount of information disclosed varies from state to state, as does the frequency of updates. Some state medical boards that name disciplined physicians on their Web sites still require consumers to contact the agencies directly to receive specific information about the misconduct.

*The 10 states that provide no information over the Internet about doctors disciplined by their licensing boards are Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

*Medical boards in California, Florida, Idaho, Massachusetts and Tennessee also provide data on their Web sites about malpractice claims paid by physicians in their states. California, Florida, Idaho and Massachusetts also report disciplinary actions hospitals take against doctors.

*For the Public Citizen evaluation of state medical board Web sites and the state agencies' Web addresses, click here.

But Dr. Thomas Reardon, immediate past president of the AMA, said there are good reasons for keeping the database closed. "The databank has just the number of suits. It doesn't have any explanatory information," he said.

He said only one malpractice lawsuit in five was due to medical negligence. "If you don't [make] that type of information available then you don't understand the information," he said.

"We support patients having good reliable valid information ... We think there is a better way and that is for states at the state level, state medical licensing boards ... to develop Web sites for patients to have access to." Some of the doctors named by the group included:

Dr. Frederick E. Reed Jr. of Charleston, S.C. who was fined $3,000 and reprimanded for putting an amputated human foot into a crab trap. "You have to ask yourself, 'Would you like to go to this doctor?" Wolfe said.

Dr. Bruce Copeland Raymon of Pensacola, Fla., who was fined $6,000 and required to take five hours of additional medical education after he cut open the wrong side of a patient's head.

"This is not adequate," Wolfe said.

Dr. Stephen Harrison Ware III of Corpus Christi, Texas, who had a 60-month restriction placed on his license and who was required to get more education after he contacted the state medical board and admitted to having sexual relations with at least 16 patients.

"The restrictions don't stop this doctor from dating former patients," Wolfe said. "In my view the most horrendous breach of the doctor-patient relationship is having sex with patients."

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