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   XPost: alt.politics   
   From: attree23x@gmail.com   
      
   April 28, 2013 59°   
      
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   Legislature should pull plug on inept Medical Board of California   
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   MICHAEL HILTZIK   
   Recent Columns   
      
   LIZ O. BAYLEN / LOS ANGELES TIMES   
      
   Sharon Levine, president of the Medical Board of California, testifies   
   at legislative hearing in March. This week, a member of the board told   
   her she should talk to the Legislature personally about the board's   
   plans for reform.   
   April 27, 2013, 12:01 a.m.   
   The time has come to put the Medical Board of California out of its   
   misery.   
      
   The board oversees the licensing of doctors and their discipline for   
   misdeeds or incompetence. It also has jurisdiction over doctor-owned   
   surgical clinics. Long ago the board acquired the reputation of being   
   one of the least effective regulatory bodies in Sacramento.   
      
   But evidence has mounted that it's worse: It's a danger to the   
   community.   
      
   Because of its ineffectiveness in a variety of spheres, patients have   
   died. Dangerous doctors have been allowed to continue operating for   
   years after their malpractice first surfaced; surgical clinics allowed   
   to remain open for years after dangerous conditions there were   
   identified.   
      
   Today the board is facing a sort of medical crisis of its own: It's up   
   for legislative re-authorization under the state's sunset rules. The   
   legislators in charge of that procedure are talking about rubbing out   
   the current membership and their executive director as of Jan. 1, and   
   starting over fresh.   
      
   "That's not an idle threat," says Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles),   
   who chairs the board's sunset review with Assemblyman Richard Gordon   
   (D-Menlo Park).   
      
   Let's hope not.   
      
   The board has sat inertly by while its disciplinary program against   
   incompetent and dangerous doctors falls to pieces. Its regulation of   
   the 1,200 physician-owned outpatient surgical centers under its   
   jurisdiction — settings where patients routinely undergo surgery under   
   potentially life-threatening conditions — is almost nonexistent.   
      
   "People are dying at these outpatient centers and your paramount   
   responsibility is to keep that from happening," Julie D'Angelo   
   Fellmeth, a San Diego public interest lawyer who was appointed by the   
   legislature to monitor the board's enforcement program in 2003-2005,   
   lectured the members last week. One would think the board knew that,   
   but the news seemed to strike the members like a bolt from the blue.   
      
   The 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.   
      
      
   Read More:   
   http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-75672223/   
      
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