Sam Soloman talks about cases of physician sexual impropriety from Canada, where doctors are wondering if the medical boards should be publicizing the names of their indiscreet colleagues:
Is full disclosure alienating physicians from their regulators? Is it possible that what appears to be something of a backlash in several recent incidents might contribute to physicians’ reluctance to report cases of colleagues’ misconduct, because they believe the punishment is too harsh?
Should these cases be handled internally, without the need to make the doctor’s name public?
Related posts:
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- Does consensual doctor-patient sex actually harm the public?
- Convincing doctors to accept a public health care plan option
- HIPAA vs the public good
- How about some lawyer reporting?
- OB malpractice in China: Same old story
- Good doctor qualities
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{ 8 comments }
I see a fault you may not see in the disciplining of physicians who cross professional barriers and engage in highly improper sexual conduct – that any physician would see exposure and sanction as “too harsh.”
What is needed is more transparency, not less.
As if patients did not have an absolute right to know if their potential physician ( what may even, at some point, be assigned to them) engages in improper behaviour taking advantage of his professional contact with patients.
As a patient I want to know any misconduct any of my health care providers are guilty of. There’s enough malpractice going on without patients really knowing if they’re dealing with incompetent, sadistic, or addicted health care workers and people want to draw the curtains tighter?
Amy I talking to/working with health care professionals, or politicians with degrees?
I suppose I should have a right to know if any patient has ever filed a lawsuit against a physician. How about we make that transparent. Or perhaps, we can check the credit report of every potential patient before taking them on. Perhaps physicians should know if any patient has ever been convicted of a felony, drug possession, theft, harrassment, abuse, substance abuse.
I think, if we are going to be transparent, we should have everyone lay it out so both parties can make informed decisions.
“What is needed is more transparency, not less.”
You will get no argument from me.
But the Happy Hospitalist (who doesn’t sound do happy) makes a good point. This “transparency” seems to be a very one-sided equation.
Actually, there is nothing to stop a doctor in non-emergencies from requiring patients to fill out an application for acceptance to the practice and using it to check a credit report, arrest record and lawsuit history before deciding whether or not to accept the patient.
A female psychiatrist who works alone has as much right to use that research to refuse to see a sexual offender as a patient as she would to refuse to see a psychiatrist who has been sanctioned for sexual violations with patients. She is well advised to do so in either case.
Really? This is a legitimate question? A doctor does this:
i) soliciting his patient to become involved in a sexual relationship with him;
ii) kissing and sexually fondling his patient on more than one occasion, including on June 6, 2006 during an appointment to see his patient’s daughter; [...]
and someone is asking whether it’s legitimate that the doctor’s name be used in a public record?
Sorry, if you violate the sacred trust between in the doctor and patient relationship (one that is readily codified in the ethical code of psychologists, for instance), you’re darned right your name should become a part of the public record.
I mean, a guy breaks into my neighbor’s house and his name is in the newspaper the next day even though he hasn’t been found guilty of a crime. Why should doctors be any different?
A lawsuit filed in court is something anyone can look up. That information isn’t hidden from physicians.
I have to say, It’s pretty ridiculous to compare a tort claim with gross professional misconduct, as if they were some sort of comparable issue.
An imaginative person might construe you implying that legal acts protected by the constitution are a form of assault.
I am troubled that any physician would consider removal from practice “too harsh” when the physician violates professional standards.
Strange that lawyers police their profession so much more rigidly. They are bound by code to report many serious violations of other lawyers, or face discipline themselves.
Physicians who are dangerous need to have their practices interrupted and their reputations suffer. I hope you know that a tiny percentage of doctors account for the majority of malpractice and misconduct lawsuits brought in civil and criminal court. Forgetting the apparently unpersuasive or less significant issue of harm to patients , it would be better for your own pocketbook to bring the hammer down on the deserving.
If any doctor decide to do any type of scandal, it should definitely go public.
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