Oregon Medical Board Action Mohammad Ashori MD

As more physicians are reaching out to me to discuss their medical board investigations, I want to summarize my experience. In 2017 Kaiser Permanente opened an internal investigation which escalated to a medical board investigation and Oregon Medical Board Action against my license under my name, Mohammad Ashori MD.

Oregon Medical Board Action

If you search Mohammad Ashori MD, you should see the Oregon Medical Board action under my state license. In it they summarize that I entered into a stipulated order for “unprofessional or dishonorable conduct and willfully violated a Board rule or order.”

This resulted in a $5,000 fine and 30-day license suspension. Of course, the reality is that this board action resulted in far more than this.

The stipulated order or also referred to as the consent order, goes on to describe that in May of 2017 I took a patient to a Kaiser Permanente urgent care to have an EKG done.

So far, very accurate. However, such a public document intends to smear the name of the physician; otherwise, of course, you’d just have to write the facts, and anyone reading it would get the point.

Since no patient was harmed in this case and no bad outcome resulted the board used their usual tactics to paint this Mohammad Ashori MD license holder (me) in the worst light.

They mentioned that I was working at a medical marijuana clinic where I met this patient. And that we went for a drink afterward which also was completely irrelevant and taken out of context.

The state medical board was most upset about the fact that I didn’t reveal the patient’s name even though they asked me for her name.

Alternative State Medical Board Action

I explained to the state medical board investigator in detail why I didn’t reveal the name. I was traveling abroad when the investigator asked for the patient’s name and I didn’t feel comfortable revealing it.

Once I returned back to the US my attorney told me that I must immediately reveal the patient’s name and that the medical board had such jurisdiction. Oops, my bad, I didn’t know. And neither did many of my other physician colleagues.

The board could have used this opportunity to educate their licensees that if they ever ask for someone’s name even over the phone and without you being able to verify if that investigator genuinely is from the medical board or not, you have to give them the patient’s name.

They could have even reprimanded me publicly to show how powerful they are.

However, to suspend a physician’s license for 30 days and write such a critical summary of the events is simply childish. And frankly, it doesn’t help the medical profession.

Physician Professional Record

The investigation opened by the Oregon Medical Board resulted in the “emergency suspension” of my license. Remember, no patient was harmed, nobody died, and no bad clinical outcome resulted.

This action sparked the California State Medical Board to also suspend my license pending further investigation.

The Washington Medical Commission reached out to me and discussed the case and they didn’t feel that a suspension was in order. In fact, I got a chance to speak to the District Attorney directly.

California didn’t do its own investigation, they verbatim copied what OR printed and signed it, claiming it was their own investigation. Literally, it’s just a copy and paste of Oregon’s investigation.

This resulted in me getting fired from work, which resulted in reports on my National Practitioner Data Bank and the inability for me to credential with future potential employers.

Long-Term Outcomes of Such Action

Mohammad Ashori MD in 2017 was a child compared to Dr. Mo in 2023. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I thought I was protecting the patient by not revealing their name and my intention was to help the patient when I went with her and her friend to the urgent care.

The Oregon medical board action resulted in a more conservative physician. Someone who practices defensive medicine and punts care instead of standing up for patient rights.

I genuinely don’t believe the Oregon Medical Board wanted this. I think, for the most part, they are trying their best with the resources they have, and often, they don’t know which physicians are malicious and which are well-intentioned.

But logic would tell you that a physician who had practiced for 11 years without a single negative mark on their record likely wouldn’t suddenly “willfully violate a Board rule.”

Since this event I have been consulting for attorneys and physicians facing their own medical board investigations. It’s been a lucrative endeavor and rewarding.

Physicians who have read about my articles which have been shared and read thousands of times likely aren’t practicing medicine with open hearts and instead filing away such stories under the category of how to self-preserve.

Practicing Medicine After Medical Board Action

The future is hard to predict. Perhaps I’ll face another board action or license suspension or malpractice suit. That’s the nature of practicing medicine in the US.

However, I’ve developed resiliency. I’m financially independent with a solid real estate and securities portfolio. I have several streams of income not involving the practice of medicine. And I continue to see patients even though the regulators of my own profession genuinely let me down.

What you haven’t read in this story is that Kaiser Permanente lied to the medical board regarding my professional record. Or that Oregon listed my lack of renewal of my state license as a “surrender”.

I didn’t share here the details of the California district attorney lying to me about my upcoming hearing which resulted in me showing up before an Administrative Law Judge without representation.

Finally, you didn’t know that I paid my attorney to petition the medical board to allow me to continue volunteering in the 2 clinics in Oregon where I was doing laser tattoo removal for sex workers and convicts and seeing homeless patients.

Hope for Physicians

A lot of this is water under the bridge. All of us eventually are going to be fine. We will find new careers and new battles to fight.

The Mohammad Ashori MD whose license was suspended in 2017 is no longer practicing. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Now there is Dr. Mo and he has a new outlook and a new method.

I remain bitter that this happened to me because I enjoyed the way I used to practice medicine. But I have forgiven myself and the Oregon State Medical Board.

My growing physician audience who is reading this is also developing their own resilience and learning from the mistakes of other physicians who share their experiences online.