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DateArticle Title (PDF Link)BlurbOriginal Link
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2/4/2022Patients Could Get A VoiceBill aims to reform law barring state Medical Board from viewing victims statementsLink
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1/15/2022State Bill Aims To Ban Abusive DoctorsLegislation comes after Times report on board's reinstatement of 10 physiciansLink
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1/8/2022It Could Get Tougher for Bad DoctorsState Medical Board seeks legislative reforms to facilitate disciplinary action.Link
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12/31/2021Accused Doctor Keeps LicenseCase involving sex assault charges raises more questions about state Medical Board.Link
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12/20/2021Calls for Reform of State Medical BoardTimes investigation finds physicians who abused patients had licenses reinstated.Link
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12/19/2021These Sexual Abusers Got Back Medical LicensesState board allows doctors who assaulted and harassed patients to resume practicingLink
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12/12/2021The Anti-Vax Crowd's Intimidation Tactics"It was a terrifying experience," Kristina Lawson says. The president of the Medical Board of California, Lawson was recounting how she was stalked and intimidated by men who identified themselves as representatives of America's Frontline Doctors, an anti-vaccination organization.Link
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11/17/2021Blowing a Whistle or Throwing a Grenade on Medical Board?For decades, patient advocacy groups have accused the board—composed of eight physicians and five public members—of being too solicitous to the doctors it regulates. A few lawmakers over the years have taken up their cause, eking out watered-down reforms in the face of a powerful doctors' lobby. But now it's an insider calling for change. In an extraordinary move, Watkins last week filed a whistleblower complaint with the state auditor's office urging the agency to investigate the inner workings of the board and its decisions, which are largely cloaked under the law.Link
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10/13/2021Limited Changes at State Medical BoardLicensing fees rise only 8%, and critics say new law omits key oversight reforms.Link
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8/4/2021State Lawmakers Concede Too Much to Doctors LobbyCalifornia legislators may pass up a chance to strengthen physician oversight and transparency. Link
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8/1/2021Speaking Up After a Botched SurgeryAdvocate for medical disclosure bill (Wendy Knecht) sees a 'disheartening' battle from doctors lobby.Link
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7/19/2021Critics assail doctors 'cartel'Would-be reformers say California Medical Assn. fights efforts to punish bad doctorsLink
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7/18/2021Shielding PhysiciansCalifornia's medical board keeps doctors in business even after allegations of negligence causing injuries and deathsLink
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11/17/2020California Medical Board to Revise Dreaded Death Certificate ProjectCalifornia's Death Certificate Project, in which physicians were investigated and sometimes punished after patients fatally overdosed, may have resulted in a terrible unintended consequence: More, not fewer, overdose deaths around the state. New data culled from 2019 death certificates from the state's 58 counties add up to 2,666 overdose fatalities, versus 2,694 reported during 2012 and 2013, the first and only two years examined so far under the project. That's a 98% increase over the annual average for those earlier years.
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9/14/2020State Senator Questions Medical Board About Its Handling of Bakersfield Doctor After Patient DeathsA San Joaquin Valley legislator is seeking answers from the Medical Board of California as to why the oversight agency allowed a Bakersfield doctor to remain in practice even though it determined he had been negligent with patients. Obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Arthur Park has been associated with the deaths of at least seven mothers and babies during childbirth, according to public documents. He’s also been the subject of at least two investigations by the state medical board, and has been a defendant in at least 10 malpractice or personal injury lawsuits.
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8/12/2019Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against California Doctors Rise Sharply Since #METOO Era BeganSince fall of 2017, the number of complaints against physicians for sexual misconduct has risen 62%, a jump that coincides with the beginning of the #MeToo movement, according to a Times analysis of California medical board data.Link
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11/21/2019KSBY Investigates: Your Doctor's PastIn the past fours years, the medical board has taken action against the licenses of 40 doctors in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties. The accusations range from over-prescribing medications to sexual misconduct. It took KSBY's Carina Corral a half hour to compile that list from the Patient Safety League's website. We then asked the California Medical Board for the same information. The Public Affairs Office said it would take two weeks and cost $130. Corral requested that information a week ago, but is still waiting for a response. We were also given instructions on how to look it up ourselves. After an hour of sifting through hundreds of pages of legal documents, penal codes and spreadsheets, we had only gotten through a handful of doctors.
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11/10/2018More than 150 San Diego doctors disciplined for sex abuse, negligenceIn the past three years, more than 150 San Diego doctors have been disciplined for everything ranging from negligence to sexual abuse. 10News has spent months looking into the state board that investigates bad doctors. Critics argue that the Medical Board of California has serious flaws that could put patients in danger. “I think we've had a number of them which is alarming,” says San Diego-based patient safety advocate Marian Hollingsworth. Link
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8/30/2018'Death Certificate Project' Terrifies California DoctorsBrian Lenzkes, MD, got a letter last December from the Medical Board of California that left him shocked and scared. The licensing agency told him it had received a "complaint filed against you" regarding a patient who died of a prescription overdose in May 2013 -- four and a half years earlier.Link
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4/24/2018California doctors fight bill requiring disclosure of probationCalifornia would become the first state in the country to require doctors on probationary licenses to notify patients about their status under a legislative proposal opposed by the physicians' lobby.

Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said the California Medical Association killed his bill on patient disclosure two years in a row. Now the measure is back in the state Senate and once again targeted by the association.		Link
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4/19/2018Patients with medical horror stories demand the CA Medical Board back patient Bill of Rights requiring transparency, accountability to prevent patient harmPatients who were sexually assaulted by doctors and lost loved ones to doctors’ negligence shared their medical horror stories today and pressed the California Medical Board to adopt a new Patient Bill of Rights and ensure future patients are protected.Link
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1/17/2018Medical Board of California saw rise in complaints; taking disciplinary actionThe Board’s Enforcement Program received 9,619 complaints against physicians and surgeons and unlicensed individuals, which represents an increase of 940 complaints from 2015- 2016, and an increase of 1,352 complaints from 2014-2015.Link
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4/5/201723 local doctors faced state discipline during first quarter of this yearDuring the first three months of this year, 23 doctors in San Diego County faced some form of disciplinary action by the Medical Board of California, according to the agency’s records.Link
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3/3/2017California Medical Board President Faces Questions Over Vote in Sexual Misconduct CaseThe president of the Medical Board of California is facing questions from critics about a business deal he struck after the board decided to reinstate the license of a doctor who engaged in sexual misconduct with patients. In 2012, Dr. Dev GnanaDev, new to the board and not yet president, was part of a disciplinary panel that voted to reinstate Dr. Hari Reddy. The Victorville family physician had lost his license in 2003 after the board found he had engaged in sexual misconduct with four female patients, including a minor.Link
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2/25/2017Hundreds of California Doctors On ProbationIn 2016 State Senator Jerry Hill proposed SB 1033 which would have taken similar action as what’s being recommend by committee staff, “Requires physicians, podiatrists, acupuncturists and chiropractors on probation for serious offenses such as sexual misconduct, substance abuse, gross negligence, or a felony conviction related to patient care to notify patients of their probationary status before visits take place.” The bill didn't pass. Link
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3/11/2016California Struggles With Delay In Doctor Discipline; Despite Effort At Reform, Cases Are Taking Longer To ResolveThree years after lawmakers threatened to pull the plug on the Medical Board of California over slow enforcement of doctor discipline, the problem is worse. Formal accusations filed in the last fiscal year took an average of 532 days to complete. That's up nearly 11 percent from 2013, when the Legislature mandated reform. Settlements took an average of nearly three years, up 12 percent. Court hearings and appeals add further delay.Link
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2/1/2016California Medical Board Should Stop Shielding Bad Doctors—EditorialSerrano Sewell said that requiring patient notification could place too much of a burden on doctors, prompt more to demand administrative law judge hearings rather than agreeing to probation and — here’s our favorite — affect the patient-physician relationship.Link
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11/2/2015Doctors on probation: Medical board still weighing how to inform patientsalifornia doctors on disciplinary probation don’t have to notify their patients. At least for now. In an 11-1 vote, the Medical Board of California turned down a request that all doctors placed on probation for varied offenses – including sexual misconduct, drug or alcohol abuse, or medical negligence – be required to tell their patients, verbally and in writing.Link
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10/30/2015Do you want to know if your doctor is on probation?The vast majority of doctors in California have clean records. But about 500 — less than half a percent — don't. They're on probation with the Medical Board of California for wrongdoing that often entails substance abuse, gross negligence, overprescribing or fondling their patients. A smattering of the cases involves poor record-keeping, while others entail criminal convictions.Link
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10/19/2015Your doctor's on probation: Should you be told?Across California, nearly 500 physicians and surgeons are on official probation for a variety of offenses, including substance abuse, medical negligence and sexual misconduct. This group makes up only a sliver – 0.3 percent – of more than 130,720 doctors and surgeons practicing in California. But they can potentially see and treat hundreds of thousands of patients.Link
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8/28/2015Einstein, Secrecy and the Medical Board of CaliforniaRecently, California activists have encouraged the MBC to require that physicians who have been placed on probation inform their patients, old and new, of the existence and terms of that probation. Current regulations do not demand this, and the MBC is the entity that has the authority to take up the cause of the California consumer; the MBC should stop protecting offending doctors over unsuspecting patients.Link
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7/13/2015Patients ought to find out more about doctorsMarian Hollingsworth: The problem is that physicians are not required to tell you they are on probation. They have to tell their insurance companies and the hospitals where they have privileges, but not their patients. And the Medical Board wants to make sure it stays that way.Link
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4/27/2015California High Court To Consider Limits on Regulators' Access to Prescription DatabaseThe California board, supported by a series of lower court rulings, says getting a court order could stall the release of records, imperiling patient safety. And it argues the comparison to private medical records is not apt.Link
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12/10/2014The Slow Pace of State Medical Board InvestigationsFour years has passed since the medical board should have been aware of Bickman’s involvement in the pain-pill mill in Anaheim Hills. In just three years, Hollywood has managed to produce three multi-million-dollar “Hunger Games” films with a fourth at the ready for release next year. And yet, up in Sacramento, Bickman’s case has trundled along as if there were no real hurry to get to the bottom of whether he did all these horrible things the DEA had accused him of.Link
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12/5/2014Medical Board takes license years after warning signsThe DEA took noticewhen Bickman – an anesthesiologist typically in the operating room rather than sitting with patients and writing prescriptions – became the sixth highest prescriber of hydrocodone in California. Eventually, in 2011, the DEA took action by stripping Bickman of his ability to prescribe addictive drugs.But Bickman remained fully licensed in California. The medical board started investigating him in late 2012 but did not take his license away until just last month,according to Medical Board of California records.Link
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7/22/2014Legislature puts California acupuncture board on noticeThe state board tasked with licensing and regulating California’s roughly 11,000 acupuncturists has faced trouble before –a cheating and bribery scandal rocked the board in 1989. Now, amid criticism that the California Acupuncture Board’s priorities give short shrift to consumer protection, state lawmakers are moving for an overhaul and lobbing a pointed message at its executive officer to get in line.Link
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7/15/2014Critics complain the California Medical Board takes too long to discipline doctorsThe California Medical Board oversees Chao's license. Julie Fellmeth watches the board. "Doctors can kill you if they are negligent, impaired or reckless," Fellmeth said. She is the senior attorney and the administrative director for Public Interest Law. "I have monitored the board for 27 years," she said.
In the Fagan case, records show the board did not discipline Chao.The board said it could not find anyone to say the doctor's effort fell below the standard of care.		Link
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4/10/2014JAMA Forum: Hiding in Plain Sight: Medical Boards and the Public’s HealthThe last few years have not been easy for a number of state medical boards.In December 2010, the New Haven Independent faulted the Connecticut Medical Board for permitting physicians to practice who had lost their licenses elsewhere. That same month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch criticized the Missouri Medical Board for sending frequent, confidential “letters of concern” that “go in a physician’s file but carry no repercussions” in lieu of more serious disciplinary actions.Link
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2/9/2014Checking a doctor's recordToday, there are a number of efforts to make meaningful data about doctors available to the public.However, it remains a hodgepodge that consumers must piece together.Link
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10/11/2013How do you make a bad regulator even worse?It's a disaster. It's confusing, misleading, unbelievably clunky and serves well as a definition of "user-unfriendly." The website program is labeled "BreEZe," the logo designed to suggest it's "E-Z." It's anything but. In the past, patients trying to find out if their M.D. had a disciplinary record with the board -- and trying to access that record -- had to navigate through, at most, five or six mouse clicks. Now it takes 11 or 12... if they can even follow the path.Link
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8/20/2013Thousands of doctors practicing despite errors, misconductA USA TODAY investigation shows that thousands of doctors who have been banned by hospitals or other medical facilities aren't punished by the state medical boards that license doctors.Link
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4/26/2013Legislature should pull plug on inept Medical Board of CaliforniaThe board's enforcement record is dismal. Since 2007 California has typically ranked among the worst states in terms of serious disciplinary actions per 1,000 licensed physicians; the public interest group Public Citizen reported in 2011 that the board had failed to take action against more than 700 physicians whose privileges had been reduced or revoked by hospitals or other clinical settings, including 102 who had been found to pose an "immediate threat" to patients.Link
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4/25/2013Lawmakers seek to strip medical board of investigative powers.The Medical Board of California would be stripped of its power to investigate physician misconduct under a sweeping reform plan by legislators who say the agency has struggled to hold problem doctors accountable.The medical board has come under fire for failing to discipline doctors accused of harming patients, particularly those suspected of recklessly prescribing drugs.Link
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4/25/2013Medical Board of California could lose investigative powersLegislators propose turning over investigations of doctors to the state attorney general's office, leaving the board to deal with licensing.Link
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4/12/2013Lawmakers Threaten to Sunset the State Medical Board over “Dangerous Physicians"After listening, for years, to complaints that the Medical Board of California (MBC) has not protected consumers from “dangerous doctors,” state lawmakers threatened to shut the board down next January 1 when it comes up for sunset review.Link
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4/11/2013Legislators threaten to kill state medical boardLawmakers warn that they will let the agency expire next year if it doesn't become more aggressive in taking action against dangerous doctors.Link
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3/10/2013Do no harm: Kill the medical boardA former meth user who was convicted on federal criminal charges for drug dealing will be treating California patients again within a year under an agreement recently announced by the California Medical Board. Pilots, lawyers or professional athletes would have lost their jobs for life.California's physician-controlled medical board, however, has become a political protection racket for the state's worst physicians.Link
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2/2/2013Doctor who admitted dealing drugs to get his license backA West Hollywood psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to felony drug dealing after pills he prescribed turned up for sale on Craigslist will be able to get his medical license back in a year under an agreement announced Friday by the Medical Board of California.Link
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1/12/2013Legislator vows action on reckless prescribing of addictive pillsHe said he was particularly concerned that the medical board's enforcement staff is smaller than it was a decade ago, even as the number of physicians in California has increased to more than 102,000, and that the board now opens 40% fewer misconduct investigations per year than it did 10 years ago.Link
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12/15/2012Reckless prescribing of narcotics endangers patients, eludes regulatorsThe medical board has repeatedly failed to protect patients from reckless prescribing by doctors, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. At least 30 patients in Southern California have died of drug overdoses or related causes while their doctors were under investigation for reckless prescribing. The board ultimately sanctioned all but one of those 12 doctors, and some were criminally charged _ too late to prevent the deaths.Link
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12/11/2012Medical Board of California oversight – a case of broken windows?While there has been a decline in the board’s investigationsinto the most serious allegations regarding patient safety and physician performance,there’s an even steeper drop in inquiries into lower level infractions.Link
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12/9/2012Pain specialist's probation was cut shortThe Medical Board of California put Dr. L. Scott Stoney on probation for 10 years for excessive prescribing, falsifying records and other offenses.
It was a stiff sanction by the agency's standards. But when a judge recommended that Stoney's probation be lifted three years early, the board did not object.		Link
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12/9/2012Doctors tried to turn in one of their ownAccording to court records, physicians in the community and the parents of patients hooked on pills complained to the Medical Board of California for years that Diaz was recklessly prescribing drugs.
But Diaz was not stopped until this year--after 17 of his patients had died of overdoses or related causes, coroner's records show.		Link
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11/15/2012The prescription drug tollProposed state legislation would require more detailed reporting on doctors and fatalities.Link
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10/26/2012Flaws found in state consumer protection enforcementThe Dental Board of California accused Choi of incompetence and repeated negligence. At the time, the board’s recommended minimum penalty for those charges was five years of probation and, “where appropriate,” 30 days’ suspension, remedial education and practice restrictions. But the dentist didn’t get that. Despite “admitting responsibility,” in the words of his settlement, Choi bargained with the Dental Board and received three years of probation and remedial education without any restrictions on his practice. Choi continued seeing patients and administering anesthesia as though nothing had happened. He still has a license today.Link
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10/26/2012Register analysis offers window into consumer protection processEvery board and bureau under the Department of Consumer Affairs publishes a list of recommended penalties for the major violations they enforce. But while department officials say the agencies generally follow their own recommendations,there's nothing in the law that actually requires them to do so – even in the most serious cases.Link
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8/10/2011California medical board fails to discipline 710 troubled doctorsOf the California doctors who escaped state discipline, 35% had more than one disciplinary action from another entity, according to the Public Citizen report.Link
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8/10/2011California failed to discipline hundreds of dangerous doctorsHundreds of California doctors who lost their hospital privileges for malpractice, incompetence, and other serious errors have never been disciplined by state regulators, and the Medical Board of California doesn't seem all that interested in finding out who they are,a consumer group has told the governor.Link
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8/9/2011California Is Delinquent in Disciplining Dangerous DoctorsThe state of California has become delinquent in disciplining doctors with documented poor records, Public Citizen said in a letter sent today to California Gov. Jerry Brown urging him to take the necessary steps to correct the dangerous shortcomings of the state medical board.Link
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8/9/2011Letter Regarding Performance of Medical Board of CaliforniaI am writing you about two related, serious concerns involving the Medical Board of California (also referred to as “Medical Board”):
A. The delinquent manner in which the Medical Board is enforcing the state’s medical practice act and, therefore, not protecting California patients from a large number of physicians with demonstrably, and previously proven, poor records
B. The worsening overall disciplinary-action performance of California over the past 13 years compared with that of other states		Link
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5/4/2011Curing the state's medical regulation systemWoefully understaffed and regularly robbed of budget funds, the Medical Board of California needs to go public about the decimation of its enforcement capabilities.Link
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10/28/2010Audit raises questions about Brown's AG officeOn Nov. 5, 2010, the Medical Board of California will discuss a new audit that finds state government could do a better job of disciplining bad doctors.Link
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9/11/2010A prescription for bad doctorsPhysicians take a solemn oath to first do no harm. But in California, shortcomings in the board that polices doctors threaten to undermine that promise.Link
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9/5/2010California doctors run afoul of state board but keep workingCalifornia has at least eight physicians who have tangled with the state
medical board three times or more and still have permission to treat
patients, a Bee review of the board's disciplinary database shows.
		Link
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4/13/2010California: Good place to be a bad doctor?In its annual ranking of state medical boards— and how much bite they put into policing bad doctors —
California narrowly escapes ranking in the Bottom Ten. It ranks, instead, in the Bottom Eleven.		Link
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4/8/2010California lags behind most states in disciplining doctors, report findsCalifornia's medical board is less likely than those in other states to revoke doctors' licenses or take other serious disciplinary action,according to a consumer advocate's report released this week. California ranked 41st among boards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in taking serious disciplinary action against doctors last year, according to the report released Monday by Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer group.Link
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3/1/2010Eliminating the California Diversion ProgramAbout two years ago,the California Medical Board, which licenses its physicians, decided to end its diversion program for substance-abusing physicians.That unanimous decision was set in motion by an extremely revealing 2004 audit of that program.Link
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2/3/2010California Medical Board admits allowing troubled doctor to monitor anotherThe panel says it was wrong to allow Dr. Christopher Dotson Jr., who had been on administrative probation, to supervise the probation of Dr. Andrew Rutland, who allegedly mishandled an abortion.
The California Medical Board put a doctor with a flawed disciplinary history in charge of monitoring another troubled doctor who, while under supervision, allegedly mishandled an abortion leading to a patient's death. On Tuesday, the board acknowledged it had made a mistake.		Link
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11/7/2009When Caregivers Harm: Problem Nurses Stay on the Job as Patients SufferUnder pressure, Murphy resigned in May 2005. Within days, Kaiser alerted California’s Board of Registered Nursing [2]: This nurse is dangerous. But the board didn't stop Murphy from working elsewhere, nor did it
take steps over the next two years to warn potential employers of the complaints against him. In the meantime, Murphy was accused of assaulting patients at two nearby hospitals, leading to convictions for battery and inflicting pain, board and court records show.		Link
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10/14/2009Doctors group suing state over medical board furloughsThe association representing California's 35,000 doctors said today it is suing the state, arguing that the furlough of workers at the state medical board, which licenses and investigates physicians, is putting both doctors and the public in harm's way.Link
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7/14/2009Schwarzenegger sweeps out nursing boardGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced most members of the state Board of Registered Nursing on Monday, citing the unacceptable time it takes to discipline nurses accused of egregious misconduct. He fired three of six sitting board members-- including President Susanne Phillips.Link
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11/1/2008Physician Misconduct and Public Disclosure Practices at the Medical Board of California This report seeks to clarify current Medical Board of California public disclosure practices and what is known about how those practices serve the goal of public protection. The report is mandated by SB 1438 (Figueroa), Chapter 223, Statutes of 2006 (codified at Business and Professions Code Section 2026), which instructs the California Research Bureau to study the role of public disclosure in the public protection mandate of the [Medical Board of California]. The ensuing CRB report shall include, but not be limited to, considering whether the public is adequately informed about physician misconduct by the current laws and regulations providing for disclosure. The study shall present policy options for improving public access.Link*
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4/23/2008State medical board ranking fallsConsumer group says the agency disciplined fewer doctors in 2007. A board spokeswoman says that is not a true measure of quality.Link
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3/17/2008Lag widens in medical complaintsThe state board now takes an average of 2 1/2 years to resolve cases, which can put patients at risk, critics say.Link
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1/25/2008Rehab program out for doctorsDoctors who abuse alcohol or drugs should no longer be allowed to enroll in a confidential, state-monitored rehabilitation program, the president of the Medical Board of California said at a summit ThursdayLink
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12/18/2007Addicted doctors still practice while in rehabTroubling cases in which doctors were accused of botching operations while undergoing treatment for drugs or alcoholhave led to criticism of rehab programs that allow thousands of U.S. physicians to keep their addictions hidden from their patients.Link
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2/2/2006Move may tighten rules for state licensesThe new rules would tighten existing state law that allows the state's eight medical schools to hire physicians from outside California temporarily without making them first meet the requirements for a license.Link
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1/21/2005Medical Board Faces Revision or DeathCalifornia's system of disciplining physicians may soon face radical surgery amid concerns that complaints drag on for years before
resolution and that doctors in detox programs are not carefully monitored.		Link
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12/24/2004State's oversight of doctors blasted/Report criticizes Medical Board as slow, secretiveThe state's Medical Board isn't doing enough to protect the public from bad doctors, according to a report ordered by the state, which found that it takes years for the agency to investigate complaints, and the public is kept in the dark in the meantime.Link*
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11/1/2004Initial Report—Medical Board of California Enforcement Program MonitorAs a result of the Legislature's 2001-02 sunset review of MBC, Senate Bill 1950 (Figueroa)...providing for the appointment of an independent enforcement monitor (Julie D'Angelo Fellmeth) and charged the monitor with evaluating "the disciplinary system and procedures of the board.Link
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12/23/2002Red Tape Hampered Probe of DoctorBetween the time the first patient complained about Dr. Jules Mark Lusman's penchant for prescribing addictive narcotics and when the cosmetic surgeon was
forced to give up his California medical license, five years came and went. "It takes too long, there are too many steps, and very few complaints end up with any discipline," said Julianne D'Angelo Fellmeth, administrative director of the University of San Diego's Center for Public Interest Law, which has monitored the board and pressed for reforms.		Link
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11/16/2002Complaint against Redding doctor made in '92 / Board closed case filed by East Bay manThe Medical Board of California was alerted a decade ago to possible wrongdoing by a Redding heart specialist who urged a Bay Area man to have unnecessary bypass surgery in 1992.The board, which last week unsuccessfully moved to suspend Moon's medical license along with the license of the Redding cardiologist who was to perform Elizalde's surgery, closed the case despite the written misgivings of Elizalde's Bay Area specialist, Dr. David Anderson.Link
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10/1/2002Law lets patients see malpractice settlements/State Medical Board will reveal if a doctor has been repeatedly suedStarting next year, the Medical Board of California will tell patients if a doctor has agreed to three to four settlements, depending on the doctor's specialty, within a 10-year-period.Link
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8/2/2002Patients may get more doctor informationThe bill, which still must clear the Assembly, would allow patients to get a fuller picture of a doctor's legal history from the Medical Board of California before undergoing treatment, said state Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont), the bill's author.Link
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5/27/2002My Permanent RecordRecently the Medical Board of California, which regulates and licenses physicians, proposed making the names of all physicians who had settled malpractice settlements available to the public. The board's action was in response to a request by the San Francisco Chronicle (the very same organization that brings you this column) to release this information. Initially the Board thought it would be reasonable to release names if there had been three or more settlements of $30,000 or more, or a single settlement of $150,000 or more. But because no one could agree on a cutoff amount, the board decided to release the name of every doctor who had settled a malpractice suit since 1997.Link
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5/17/2002Full disclosure for patientsDOES A patient have a right to know if his or her doctor lost or settled a malpractic case -- and the circumstances of the case? Not under current state practices. Fortunately, that may be about to change, now that the Medical Board of Californi has voted unanimously to embrace legislation that would greatly expand the public's access to doctors' records.Link
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5/13/2002More Data on Doctors BackedThe Medical Board of California has voted to support public disclosure of all medical malpractice settlements involving physicians, which would significantly expand public access to information about doctors.Link
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5/12/2002Opening doctors' records gets OK/Medical Board votes to support new billUnder increasing fire for keeping complaints and legal actions against doctors secret, the Medical Board of California voted unanimously Saturday to push for legislation that would make the board's records of medical malpractice settlements available to the public for the first time.Link
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4/13/2002The Medical Board of California (MBC) is in BIG trouble...Now, we are focused on the Medical Board.It is not a time to be nice.
This time, though, we are not interested in the appointed members. The STAFF IS THE PROBLEM. Personally, I’m for firing everyone in the building – fumigating the place – and starting over completely.We’ve told them, and told them, and told them.. They simply didn’t listen.		Link
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4/7/2002Doctors Without Discipline—How doctors can hurt patients and get away with it.The board doesn't check court filings for lawsuits against physicians.
If it did, it would have found that after he became a new doctor at
Centinela Hospital in Los Angeles, Rutland and his partners were
sued at least five times by family members who lost babies or
mothers or wives during surgery.		Link
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1/7/2002Medical Board Lacks Some Discipline RecordsNot all doctors who are ordered to pay damages to patients end up paying the price on their records, according to a newspaper investigation that found only some cases ever make it into the Medical Board of California's records. One-third of 66 reviewed cases were entered into the agency's computer database, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. However, all of the cases' verdicts and arbitration awards were widely reported by the media in the last three years.Link
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1/6/2002Patients don't get full story on doctors / Many malpractice verdicts not on state board's Web siteDr. Robert L. Hillyard failed to order an eye exam that could have prevented a premature infant from going blind, an Orange County jury ruled. Castro Valley doctor Wing Chin refused to give a dying cancer patient sufficient pain medication, an East Bay jury decided. And a Pasadena jury found that Dr. Cecilia T. Lin erred by not immediately delivering a baby when a woman checked into a hospital, nine months pregnant with vaginal bleeding and high blood pressure. The girl was born three days later with brain damage. In all three cases, jurors ordered the doctors to pay more than a million dollars in damages, amounts large enough to be reported in major newspapers. But the Medical Board of California -- which licenses, monitors and disciplines physicians statewide -- said last month all three doctors had spotless records.Link
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8/14/2000Unmasking 'Questionable' DoctorsThe national report, coauthored by Wolfe and released last week, listed 28,000 actions taken against doctors from 1990 to 1999. It concludes that the United States has an inadequate system for protecting Americans against medical misdeeds, and that state disciplinary boards are too lenient.Link
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8/9/2000Bad Doctors Going Unpunished / State medical board says S.F. Kaiser tried to hide physician's mistakesInstead, according to the state board investigation, Kaiser's physician-in-chief at the time, Dr. Philip Madvig, and its administrator, Frank Alvarez, negotiated a secret deal allowing McEnany to leave the hospital quietly and go to Wisconsin. In that state, where colleagues and patients had no idea of his previous troubles, he ended up with one of the highest surgical mortality records in the state.Link
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5/22/2000Physician, Reveal ThyselfConsumers increasingly want to check out their doctors' backgrounds, but organized medicine and consumer advocates don't always agree on what information should be public.Link
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5/16/2000ACLU investigates political bias by the Medical Board of CaliforniaThe ACLU is releasing a study entitled "Preventing Unfair Prosecution of Abortion Providers: An Investigation into Political Bias by the Medical Board of California" that examines the case of Dr. Bruce Steir, who was referred by the Medical Board for criminal prosecution after a patient died following a second-trimester abortion. In an effort to determine why Dr. Steir was singled out for criminal prosecution, the report compares the Medical Board's treatment of Dr. Steir to its treatment of other doctors whose patients died in their care.Link
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3/21/1998Doctor Arrested After Abortion of 26-Week FetusA recently suspended doctor with a long history of medical complaints has been arrested on suspicion of murder after performing an abortion that left his patient bleeding uncontrollably and a 26-week-old fetus in the trash at a Van Nuys clinic.Goei's disciplinary history began when he was found guilty May 4, 1979, of using a fictitious name in his practice without a valid permit. He was placed on a one-year probation.
On June 25, 1984, Goei was found guilty of gross negligence and incompetence for wrong diagnoses and unnecessary surgeries. Once again, he was placed on a
one-year probation. In 1992, Goei was disciplined by the board for "knowingly making" a false medical document. That time, according to state records, he was placed on three years' probation.		Link
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1/18/1998More Data About Doctors Now on InternetHowever, the information is brief.Take the example of Dr. Patrick Chavis of Lynwood. The site reveals that the medical board has suspended his license and filed an accusation (equivalent to a charge), that he has not yet had a hearing or been found guilty of any charges, and that his staff privileges were revoked by Suburban Medical Center in Paramount.But it does not reveal what he is accused of.
Chavis was accused by the medical board last year of seriously injuring two patients and keeping them at different times in his own home, and of abandoning a third patient--groggy from liposuction surgery--in his office. That patient later died at a Lynwood hospital. The physician has denied the allegation of gross negligence.		Link
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10/24/1997S.F. abortion doctor was on probation for past violationsIn 1991, the medical board sought to revoke Steir's probationafter Steir allegedly lied in an application to practice at a Kaiser Permanente facility, Martinez said. Steir had failed to report that he had been disciplined before, he said. The hospital turned down his request for staff privileges, Martinez said.The same year, another accusation arose stemming from a 1988 caseinvolving a 31-year-old Bay Area woman who was five months pregnant. Board records show that Steir had unknowingly perforated the woman's uterus during an abortion. She was later admitted to Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in The City, where she needed a bowel resection and a repair of the perforation, the records said.Medical board investigators began amassing more claims against Steir and in 1993 he was given another five years' probation.Link