After the Oregon medical board suspended my medical license I got slammed with notifying everyone and their momma about the 30-day suspension. I’ve sent tens of letters and expect to lick many more stamps.
The initial event happened May 2017 – 1.5 years and counting.
Laid off from medicine
I ended up getting laid off by all of the companies for whom I was doing telemedicine work for. But I managed to keep my 2 consulting clients – so far.
I have also tried applying to different telemedicine companies and in-person urgent care but nobody will touch me with the shit that’s written on my professional profile at the NPDB.
More state investigations
Washington wrote me a letter that they have received a verbal complaint regarding the same issue. So, the same person who initiated that complaint in Oregon has gone and initiated that same complaint in Washington.
The Washington Medical Commission has now opened a new case and referenced my medical license suspension in Oregon and sent me an inquiry letter. Read about the result of it here.
Bullshit on repeat ?
It’s the same old bullshit: what happened, who were the parties involved, what did Oregon do, have you been terminated by any employers because of this, what other information do we need to know?
Each and every one of these actions by medical boards requires me to send certified letters at $8 a pop to each of the other medical boards and to CMS and to current employers and to the ABFM who also suspended me for 30 days.
It’s a fucked up and backwards process.
Next steps…
My left brain is infuriated, ready to tell each of these medical groups to lick my sweaty ass. My right brain is still trying to digest everything and saying that it’s okay, it’s the nature of such a highly regulated profession.
I now have to fly out to multiple in-person interviews with the California medical board and I’m sure I’ll have to do the same with Washington.
To add insult to injury, after I was reprimanded for not listing my home address on my public records – as you have to do if you’re doing telemedicine from home – the people at the Washington medical board still managed to send my letter to the wrong address.
I have decided to pay for a mailing service with a unique street address until all of this bullshit is resolved.
Kill a patient
From my lawyer’s mouth to your ears: “If you had only killed a patient or gotten sued for some malpractice related case, we wouldn’t be having all these headaches.”
I recall reading about some oncologist committing major fraud – billing millions of dollars a year and pocketing an 8-figure income annually. Man, I judged such doctors to death.
Now I look at all this bullshit I’ve been through over a rogue office test and it’s not that I’m condoning immoral clinical behavior, but are our clinical careers really this fickle? If so, ya sort of gotta make the most out of it while you can.
5 replies on “Medical Board Investigation Update – December 2018”
Absolutely insane. I can’t imagine how frustrating that would be. If anything it should be one national registry and be done with it rather than dealing with each state individually. And if it has to be on a state level, it should be the state the issue originated in and the other states accept that state’s ruling.
I hope it is worth it going through all these financial hoops in order to practice medicine (which to be honest if I went through all that I would hate medicine so much I would not wish to be engaged in it at all (of course much easier said than done when you have built up a large financial store).
It is sad that killing a patient would have raised less of an issue than your EKG example.
Thank you for your sentiments – means a lot.
Medicine was no longer worth practicing for me about 5 years into the career. Until then I loved the shit out of it. It would have been nice to have a foot in that door just in case but now I have to see this through – once the investigation starts there is no way to stop it. I could give up my medical license now on my own volition, it wouldn’t change anything. The medical board investigation will continue until they are satisfied.
After my Oregon medical board investigation the first thing I wanted to do is give up my California and Washington medical licenses. This wouldn’t have done a thing to prevent the investigations. The only option I have is to give up my license as a stipulation in response to the investigation but this will result in the medical board wording it that I forfeited my license and this would make me at fault.
If I terminate my medical license during the investigation then not only would the investigation continue but it would be worded as “licensee forfeited medical license during active investigation”.
The point of all this is to be punitive so in a way it makes sense what they are doing. It’s a huge nuisance but it will be hiccup in the road. The way I look at it is that I was on my way out of medicine anyways. Nobody can take my MD and my medical knowledge away and in the end that will be far more valuable than an employer-employee contract.
And though I’m trying to justify and downplay the situation, emotionally it has been terrible on me. But that’s mostly because someone is taking my ice cream away. Nevermind that it would have melted away anyways. I’m just butthurt that it’s not on my own terms.
Sorry about all this dude…truly. Appreciate you speaking “your truth” and democratizing your story for all the world to see. Much love brother.
Medical board disciplinary actions suck! They are reputation and career killers. No wonder some prefer suicide over enduring all the ridicule and humiliation that goes with a board action.
And yet it doesn’t have to be this way. You can punish someone without ruining the reputation or the professional career of that person. This will actually be more profitable. The regulating bodies can punish more physicians, earn money from fines, get more funding for their departments, profit indirectly from professionalism courses, without causing the lack of patient access and the subsequent defensive medicine.
The problems is that when you create a government agency with no major oversight then that unit will operate at the level of its most punitive officer in fear that there might be that one rogue physician who goes snapping nude photos of every patients and sexually molesting all their patients.
The fear of malpractice suits and patients complaints and board actions is what is causing physicians to accept jobs only if they pay quite well and if patients can be treated as items on a bill. The thought process is that if I am going to get sued at least I’ll cover my ass and won’t form any bonds with these assholes who’ll sue me. This actually does drive up the cost of care which in turn increases physician salaries. So it’s not all bad if only for us not practicing medicine solely for the income side of it.