Shine the light on bad docs
Friday, March 31st, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
Erring doctors will find it harder to hide their handiwork if the N.C. General Assembly gives the N.C. Medical Board the authority it seeks.
As Wilmington patients have learned, the board needs to be much more open.
For almost three years, it kept mum while it watched the personal and professional problems of a surgeon with privileges at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
The hospital let Steven Olchowski keep on slicing until unhappy customers started filing malpractice suits. Even then, a prospective patient who checked with the medical board would have been told absolutely nothing bad about him.
Olchowski never lost his license to practice in North Carolina. He gave it up voluntarily when he was allowed to practice in another state.
After the Star-News and then The News & Observer of Raleigh wrote about the case, the medical board offered a couple of defenses for its failure to inform and protect the public.
First, it said it lacked the money to do the job right. It asked the General Assembly to boost doctors’ annual licensing fees by $50, to $175, and legislators complied.
The board also said it lacked the authority to release more information about erring docs. Now it’s asking the General Assembly to give it that authority.
Organized medicine supports the request, and so do trial lawyers, though some say the proposals don’t go far enough. Perhaps they could be improved. (more…)
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