The Texas Meddling Association….er…..Texas Medical Association, filed suit againt the Board of Chiropractic Examiners in Travis County on September 15, 2006, saying, among other things, that Chiropractic doctors should not be diagnosing their own patients. But now, we are bringing up a question as to why they do not clean their OWN house first.
We brought you the information on Dr. Eric Scheffey, MD and his 78 lawsuits, 20 years of misconduct allegedly before he was stopped in the Summer of 2005, and then, he was arrested in September 2005 in Colorado for practicing medicine without a license. We brought you info on Dr. Chitale in Ennis, who was allegedly commiting sexual assaults on his female patients.
Now, here is an interesting article from Palestine on a work comp doctor. Now, I am just reporting what has been reported in the major news media on this doctor. Please read what the major news media says….
“Patients Suffer After Doctor’s License Is Temporarily Suspended
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Patients Suffer After Doctor’s License Is Temporarily Suspended |
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He was ordered not to practice medicine. After the Texas Medical Board found him to be a threat to his
\n”He had taken all of the records, so I had to start a new history and physicals. We had to call for X-Rays, MRI\’s, lab work. We didn\’t have anything. We had some people on large doses of pain medication, and I had to ween them off, or at least cut them down. Some of them were taking three to four times what a normal person would take,” says Branch.\n
\nThose who work here say many of their patients, like Patrick, are on workers\’ compensation. They say Dr. Byrnes didn\’t file the proper paperwork for months, and many of their patients are now in jeopardy of losing benefits. For Patrick, the problem is even worse than that.\n
\n”We\’re threatened to be kicked out of our apartment. We\’re behind on our rent. Our utilities, we had a little bit of help with, but basically, our lives have been turned upside down,” says Patrick.
\nThe clinic is looking for a full time replacement for their practice, so patients can continue getting the treatment they need. They say there is still a lot of work before things can get back to normal. “,1] ); //–> patients.Dr. Robert J. Byrnes of the Palestine Medical and Rehabilitation Center had his license temporarily suspended Friday.
The board cited, among other things, a June indictment for insurance fraud, a guilty plea in August for making assaults and threats to a family member, and a positive urine test in July for amphetamines.
He was also cited for a list of prescription drugs like oxycodone that were allegedly found in his car in August.
As KLTV 7’s Lindsay Wilcox expains, those Dr. Byrnes once treated are now suffering for his alleged actions.
When allegations surfaced against Dr. Robert Byrnes last month, it left patients like Patrick Tuskey stunned.
“I thought i had a good doctor,” says Tuskey.
Patrick’s been a patient at the rehab center since he hurt his back on the job a year ago. The clinic is now being run by Doctor James Branch, a retired doctor with 42 years experience, who’s cleaning up the mess he says Dr. Byrnes left behind.
“He had taken all of the records, so I had to start a new history and physicals. We had to call for X-Rays, MRI’s, lab work. We didn’t have anything. We had some people on large doses of pain medication, and I had to ween them off, or at least cut them down. Some of them were taking three to four times what a normal person would take,” says Branch.
Those who work here say many of their patients, like Patrick, are on workers’ compensation. They say Dr. Byrnes didn’t file the proper paperwork for months, and many of their patients are now in jeopardy of losing benefits. For Patrick, the problem is even worse than that.
“We’re threatened to be kicked out of our apartment. We’re behind on our rent. Our utilities, we had a little bit of help with, but basically, our lives have been turned upside down,” says Patrick.
The clinic is looking for a full time replacement for their practice, so patients can continue getting the treatment they need. They say there is still a lot of work before things can get back to normal. lwilcox@kltv.com
“,1] ); //–>
The Texas Medical Board says Byrnes was ‘…An imminent peril to the public health, safety and welfare that requird immediate effect of this Order of Temporary Suspension.’
We tried to reach Dr. Byrnes for his comment, but were unable to.
Lindsay Wilcox/Reporting: lwilcox@kltv.com ”
From http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5522776
You notice the slant of the story is patients sufffering, and not the question, why is his license only being TEMPORARILY suspended?
Let’s look at an article of interest with regard to the actions of the Texas Medical Board with regard to discipline of doctors.
http://www.jaoa.org/cgi/content/full/106/3/153
“JAOA • Vol 106 • No 3 • March 2006 • 153-156
Factors Associated With High-Severity Disciplinary Action by a State Medical Board: A Texas Study of Medical License Revocation
Roberto Cardarelli, DO, MPH; John C. Licciardone, DO, MBA
From the Departments of Family Medicine (Cardarelli) and Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (Licciardone) at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth—Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Address correspondence to: Roberto Cardarelli, DO, MPH, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth—Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Division of Education and Research, 855 Montgomery St, Fort Worth, TX 76107-2553. E-mail: rcardare@hsc.unt.edu
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Methods |
All procedures for this retrospective analysis were reviewed and approved by the institutional review board at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth—Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Data on physician sex, race, medical degree, primary specialty, method of licensure, years in practice, type of violation, and the type and number of disciplinary actions taken were obtained from the Texas Medical Board (TMB; formerly called the Texas Board of Medical Examiners). This study included physicians disciplined by the TMB between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 1998. Only the most recent instance of disciplinary action was analyzed for physicians with a history of multiple violations (ie, 1 vs 
2). Exclusion criteria for TMB physician records were those with missing data and those documenting out-of-state violations.
Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to compute odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for factors associated with physician license revocation, the most severe disciplinary action, compared with all other forms of disciplinary action combined. Hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of statistical significance using SYSTAT software (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Ill).7
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Results |
Most physicians in this retrospective review (N=1129) were men, white, graduates of allopathic medical schools in the United States, and specified primary care as their primary specialty (Table 1). Number of years in practice was positively associated with license revocation compared with all other types of disciplinary action combined (Table 2). In addition, the odds of license revocation were greater among anesthesiologists, general practitioners, and psychiatrists compared with family physicians. A history of multiple disciplinary actions (ie, 2 disciplinary actions) was also associated with license revocation.
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Table 2 Physicians Disciplined by the Texas Medical Board* Factors Associated With Medical License Revocation (N=1129) |
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Comments |
Our study found several factors associated with the severity of disciplinary action taken by the TMB. Although previous researchers have analyzed physician characteristics as factors that placed physicians at risk of disciplinary action by state medical boards,1–4 those studies did not review the decision-making process of the boards themselves. Therefore, to study the process of disciplinary action in the TMB, we chose to analyze factors associated with high-severity disciplinary action while controlling for the type of violation.
In our analysis, the personal characteristics of disciplined physicians did not influence the TMB’s decisions to take high-severity disciplinary action against them. This result suggests that TMB decisions during the study period were based on the specifics of the cases reviewed, substantiating the board’s primary responsibility to protect patients in the state of Texas.
However, we found evidence that the TMB was more likely to revoke the license of physicians who had a history of disciplinary actions from the board (ie, 2 or more disciplinary actions). Unfortunately, the characteristics of physicians’ practices, such as patient volume, staff, clinic location, and environmental factors, which may confound our findings, cannot be accounted for. In a similar study based in Ohio that was published in JAOA—The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association,4 researchers did not find an association between high-severity disciplinary action and multiple physician offenses.
A longer time in medical practice was also associated with an increased probability of medical license revocation. This factor has not been reported in similar studies. We suggest that the longer a physician practices medicine, the greater the number of patient encounters (ie, higher levels of patient “exposure”), resulting in greater potential for violations and subsequent disciplinary actions by state medical boards.
In the Ohio study,4 physician gender is not associated with high-severity disciplinary action. Although women are less likely to be disciplined by state medical boards than their male counterparts,1–4 once disciplinary action is taken, physician gender is not associated with high-severity disciplinary action.
Our results concur with those of the Ohio study4 in that the TMB did not impose high-severity penalties disproportionately between allopathically or osteopathically trained physicians. In addition, there seems to be no relationship between high-severity disciplinary action for allopathic physicians as trained in the United States or abroad.
Although family and general practitioners, obstetrician-gynecologists, and psychiatrists are at increased risk for disciplinary action,1,3 we found only anesthesiologists, general practitioners, and psychiatrists at increased risk for license revocation once disciplined.
The effect of board certification was not directly measured in our study. However, our study design categorized family medicine and general practice separately, and we believe that we can use these data as a proxy for board certification. Although not proven, one potential hypothesis is that because general practitioners lack formal specialized medical training, they may be prone to committing mistakes with more severe outcomes. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that state medical boards may punish more severely physicians who lack board certification.
Anesthesiology is a specialty at increased risk for disciplinary action in some studies,2 but not in others.1,3,4 Based on our findings, once an anesthesiologist is found to be at fault, the severity of disciplinary action by TMB is harsh.
Psychiatrists were most likely to have their licenses revoked. Additional studies are needed to confirm this finding, however, and to further evaluate factors that may be associated with this outcome.
Contrary to the results of the Ohio study,4 we found no increased risk of license revocation among physicians with substance abuse and prescription misuse violations. There was no increased risk for license revocation among the types of violations, except for “Other.” In our study, however, criminal charges were included in the “Other” category, which most likely explains our statistically significant finding. Additional violation categories may have also contributed to the statistically significant finding in “Other,” but the small number of such violators precluded a more stratified analysis.
There are several limitations to our study. The details of physician violations were not available in the TMB records that were provided to us. Because these data were unavailable, we were not able to determine the degree and severity of the violations themselves. For example, physician use of alcohol may affect professional conduct to the extent that there is a fatal patient outcome. Alternatively, another physician may suffer from alcohol dependence yet never commit a medical error. It is unknown whether the severity of TMB disciplinary actions was determined by the severity or outcome of the violation cited.
Another limitation that researchers using data gathered from state medical boards must confront is the temporal realities of state medical boards. Members serving on state medical boards serve several-year terms, possibly resulting in a fluctuation of the decision-making processes on these boards.
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Conclusion |
Although the findings of our study cannot be generalized nationally because medical boards and physician characteristics differ somewhat across the nation,4 it is our hope that they will create an impetus for further research on the importance of physician specialty, lack of board certification, and multiple disciplinary actions as predictors of license revocation. In addition, further studies are needed to evaluate the decision-making processes of state medical boards to ensure that there are no age, specialty, or degree biases. Programs aimed at addressing these factors and providing appropriate physician education or early intervention may be useful in mitigating the toll of license revocation on physicians and their patients.
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References |
1. Cardarelli R, Licciardone JC, Ramirez G. Predicting risk for disciplinary action by a state medical board. Tex Med.2004; 100:84 –90.[Medline] 2. Morrision J, Wickersham P. Physicians disciplined by a state medical board. JAMA.1998; 279:1889 –1893.[Abstract/Free Full Text]3. Kohatsu ND, Gould D, Ross LK, Fox PJ. Characteristics associated with physician discipline: a case-control study. Arch Intern Med. 2004;164:653 –658.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
4. Clay SW, Conaster RR. Characteristics of physicians disciplined by the State Medical Board of Ohio. J Am Osteopath Assoc. 2003;103:81–88. Available at: http://www.jaoa.org/cgi/reprint/103/2/81. Accessed February 23, 2006.
5. Papadakis MA, Hodgson CS, Teherani A, Kohatsu ND. Unprofessional behavior in medical school is associated with subsequent disciplinary action by a state medical board. Acad Med.2004; 79:244 –249.[Medline]
6. Tex Occup Code ch 164. Available at: http://www.tmb.state.tx.us/rules/codes/chapter164.php#164001. Accessed March 1, 2006.”
I find this highly interesting !
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