Saturday, April 24, 2004
Supervising Doctors Redux
No sooner had I completed the posting about medical misbehavior as reported by the Boston Globe last Sunday and Tuesday than another such story appeared in the Thursday (April 22) issue.
This time, the story reported that the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine had suspended the licenses of five physicians.
· Dr. Donald J. Greely, Jr., a surgeon, was suspended for five instances of “substandard care,” two of which involved deaths.
· Dr. Lisa Lombard, an anesthesiologist, was suspended for practicing medicine while addicted to the painkiller Demerol.
· Dr. Lee Chartock, a psychiatrist, was suspended after repeated reports of alcohol impairment in his office and at public events.
· Dr. Christopher Simard, identified as a former anesthesiologist in New Hampshire who had a Massachusetts medical license, was suspended for abusing the addictive drug fentanyl.
· Dr. Beverly Greer, an obstetrician/gynecologist, was suspended after repeated arrests for alcohol-related motor vehicle offenses.
Hospitals involved in these cases were:
· South Shore Hospital in suburban Weymouth, where Dr. Greely had “agreed to stop booking patients.”
· Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, from which Dr. Lombard “has been on medical leave since March 18.”
· Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, from which Dr. Greer “has been on a leave of absence….since last May.”
Apparently, these hospitals feel that their responsibility in such matters is limited to preventing obviously impaired doctors from practicing medicine on the premises.
And, again, there is no mention of the profession itself having a role to play (other than the operation of a substance abuse treatment program run by the Massachusetts Medical Society).
Considering the central role that medicine plays, both in the quality of life and in the economics of health care, this seems to me simply not good enough. Medical practice, like all other forms of human activity, needs to be supervised on an ongoing basis. Either hospitals should be charged with responsibility for doing it or some other, as yet undefined, mechanism needs to be created.
RDW
No sooner had I completed the posting about medical misbehavior as reported by the Boston Globe last Sunday and Tuesday than another such story appeared in the Thursday (April 22) issue.
This time, the story reported that the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine had suspended the licenses of five physicians.
· Dr. Donald J. Greely, Jr., a surgeon, was suspended for five instances of “substandard care,” two of which involved deaths.
· Dr. Lisa Lombard, an anesthesiologist, was suspended for practicing medicine while addicted to the painkiller Demerol.
· Dr. Lee Chartock, a psychiatrist, was suspended after repeated reports of alcohol impairment in his office and at public events.
· Dr. Christopher Simard, identified as a former anesthesiologist in New Hampshire who had a Massachusetts medical license, was suspended for abusing the addictive drug fentanyl.
· Dr. Beverly Greer, an obstetrician/gynecologist, was suspended after repeated arrests for alcohol-related motor vehicle offenses.
Hospitals involved in these cases were:
· South Shore Hospital in suburban Weymouth, where Dr. Greely had “agreed to stop booking patients.”
· Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, from which Dr. Lombard “has been on medical leave since March 18.”
· Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, from which Dr. Greer “has been on a leave of absence….since last May.”
Apparently, these hospitals feel that their responsibility in such matters is limited to preventing obviously impaired doctors from practicing medicine on the premises.
And, again, there is no mention of the profession itself having a role to play (other than the operation of a substance abuse treatment program run by the Massachusetts Medical Society).
Considering the central role that medicine plays, both in the quality of life and in the economics of health care, this seems to me simply not good enough. Medical practice, like all other forms of human activity, needs to be supervised on an ongoing basis. Either hospitals should be charged with responsibility for doing it or some other, as yet undefined, mechanism needs to be created.
RDW
