Public Citizen released its annual ranking of state medical boards today and the findings show that there is a continuing decline in the rate of serious disciplinary actions being taken against bad doctors. That’s a troubling trend because it shows the boards may not be meeting their obligations when it comes to protecting the public from doctors who are putting patients at risk. While the most aggressive state when it comes to disciplining doctors is Alaska, the worst are a diverse group that includes South Carolina, Minnesota, Mississippi, Wisconsin, South Dakota and Nevada.
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, said that lack of doctor discipline equates to a lack of patient protection:
These numbers show that many states are thereby continuing to allow doctors to endanger the lives and health of some of their residents because of inadequate discipline. Serious attention must be given to finding out why the worst states are failing to discipline doctors and then action must be taken, legislatively and through pressure on the medical boards, to bring about necessary changes.
Click here, to see how your state medical board fared.
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[…] April 25, 2008 by Joe Newman Here’s a roundup of stories that followed Public Citizen’s release of its annual state medical board rankings: […]