Complaint Review: Governor John Kasich

If the State of Ohio Medical Board is any measuring stick, then Governor Kasich is running Ohio as no one would allow him to run anything in Washington, DC.  Ohio has the worst of systems of physician complaint and review, where false physician discipline cases are the rule to the point that there currently exists a stack of known false cases that the state is probably liable for in some amount. 



So threatening is the liability to the State of Ohio that no legislator will permit a full review of any of the cases to date (only partial review where everything will be 'fixed' - that was the Budish solution).  Hence the physician careers are gone forever, for nothing more than a physician trying to get appropriate medical care for themselves and having to disagree with out-of-date Ohio medical practices.  And Governor Kasich promised to reform the bad practices and the State Medical Board.  Senator Eklund - district 98 - would rather craft a bill to let Mexicans drive without a license in Ohio.



There needs to be an outside 'external' review of all the false physician disciplines & suspensions at the State Medical Board of Ohio over the last 20 years - even if there is no possibility of the state ever paying damages - at least lives will be saved - of patients and physicians.  But a law has to be passed for this review - and that the State of Ohio would not be liable - so that the State can proceed with a review.  But Senator Eklund, and Senator Grendell before him, can't write that bill for some reason - they don't know about medical mistake laws.  Ohio is one of maybe 5 states that have no medical mistake laws - again Governor Kasich is a bit out-of-date even though a 'darling' of Meet the Press.



There's no statute of limitations for new evidence that was the 'case' to begin with at the State Medical Board of Ohio; confidential complaint systems allow physician licenses to be taken with no case except 'confidential' - a confidential that can be changed many times as the state tries to 'find' a case.  Suicides might be averted if nothing else. 



Many of these 'disciplines' are for nothing more than not referring to the 'right' physicians, not agreeing with bad medical & orthopedic care practices, and reporting the bad care - which is making 'too much of bad medical care.'  In other states, medical mistake laws mandate such reporting.  But Ohio isn't like any other state - even Texas has had to reform their controversial confidential physician complaint system.  And the lawyers in Texas blog quite openly about the problems - unlike the wimps in Ohio. 



If colleague physicians complained falsely about a physician, relying on the 'confidential' excuse, and the non-checking of the State Medical Board, then those colleagues need to be penalized - pay damages to the state for not even speaking with the physician that they falsely accused.  It's not patient-physician communication that is the problem in Ohio, it's physician-physician communication and medical mistakes.  You can't reward colleagues that would take a physician out of practice during an easily treatable illness or recovery - by saying that they don't 'deserve' care - or suspend a woman physician's license during pregnancy or a fracture illness from a neglected endocrine problem ie the guys don't know how to order thyroid function tests in Ohio - either at University Hospitals in Cleveland or The Cleveland Clinic.  Withholding blood work, casts, doing unnecessary procedures etc - is the rule of physicians caring for physicians in Ohio.  Disable your colleague is the mantra as in the concussion saga of the NFL. 



Governor Kasich - with no graduate degrees - has no concept of the value or sacrifices that go into graduate professional education.  He should not be ok'ing the 'taking out' of women physicians who didn't sleep with Dr. Nice, or agree to University Hospitals Endocrinology physicians not doing any thyroid blood work.  And he shouldn't be appointing Medical Board Members who know nothing about medicine for campaign contributions.