Complaint Review: Governor John Kasich

Transparency needed at the State Medical Board of Ohio, ie no 'confidential' physician complaints, medical mistake laws, care-to-function allowed for any physician with an acute illness that needs care (time offs & leave-of-absences allowed without licensure censures or detailed explanations of the physician health problem or pregnancy), and a 'third pathway' at the State Medical Board for physician-physician disputes over care practices = REFORMS so that women MDs don't lose their medical licenses having to disagree with the boys over outdated care practices.  Dr. Anita Steinbergh, Dr. Lance Talmadge = two Members that currently want your 'health on a plate' before they license, or re-license, and it's really 'confidential' unless it interferes with physician judgments.  Could we get disclosure on Medical Board Member health problems please - starting with what prescription drugs they are on? 

Governor Kasich knows no public health, has no training in health care policy, and has put Brad Reynolds in charge of his UNSTOPPABLE runaway agenda-train going nowhere.  Governor Kasich's secretary will tell you that of course he KNOWS what is going on at the State Medical Board of Ohio - 'he's the GOVERNOR.'  Well, no one really knows what is going on at the State Medical Board of Ohio = the FINAL answer.   

Pretty much every other State has some form of MEDICAL MISTAKE LAWS for physicians at their State Medical Boards - so that honest mistakes are not causes of unnecessary physician suspensions or disciplines - and some form of 'transparency' so that cases meet some legal criteria of fact & certainty, not 'provisional' diagnoses based on hearsay, criteria that don't exist, & fabrications of the evidence (cheating), before the State spends money to disrupt a physician's life with a false case.  When you destroy a physician's life, you destroy their health - it goes with the stress.   

The State Medical Board has admitted cheating in one woman's physician case - TWICE - but there is no rule about dismissing a case if the Board cheats - they just re-cheat in a different way as there is no external review of Medical Board decisions in Ohio.  The Ohio State Medical Board can CHEAT in a physician discipline case AS MANY TIMES AS THEY WANT TO - there is no throwing of a case out for cheating, or there not being a case.  The Ohio Court of Appeals can throw the case out, but can't get the evidence to hear the case and resolve the issues = walkabout. 

Some responsibility of judgment - which saves money in the long run over physician egos starting fights with the person they hated in Medical School because they studied - is desperately needed in Ohio.  This happened in Ohio when then-Board Member Carla O'Day MD went after physicians that she hated in the early 1990s - because even the CWRU librarians remember her as a 'political' student who rarely came in the door.  And the extra required references, and course materials - ie copies of past tests - not in the bookstore, were behind the library front desk.  So before every test, unless you could threaten the CWRU Deans that you knew Celeste's wife personally, you had to check out some of the library reference materials - unless you were Carla O'Day. 

Ohio is the last of the truly corrupt states - having to build casinos to stem the tide of bankruptcy that comes from the destroying of innocent careers & lives.  It's not just abortion that is the problem in Ohio - and one Board Member writes amicus briefs for the 3rd trimester abortion = an option that every woman needs in Ohio per him.  Every state could do what Ohio does with 'confidential' physician complaints & cases, but no other state can afford this.  Ohio can't produce it's needed income in non-gambling ways. 

Despite Governor Kasich promising better, he's fallen into the 'Celeste solution' - or the 'Russo solution' - 'fixing' cases at the State Medical Board without the evidence, or case files, being out there for people to come forward with the truth.  No objective witness can come forward unless they are aware of the accusations, experts can't testify, so sex lives of physicians are discussed ad infinitum in Columbus - because the cases don't involve the medical practice decisions.  Physicians that practice better than average medical care are regularly targeted in Ohio - for harassment, for suspensions, for disciplines - simply because they irked or questioned someone with power. 

One woman MD has had her 'sex life' discussed, her preferences as she didn't 'like' her male colleagues who cared for her fractures, no less than 5 times - once in Columbus for 3 days of repetitive questions to her expert - it cost the family $50,000.  Her medical practice decisions were not on trial, her personality was - she wasn't Miss Congeniality. 

Recently the 'pill-mill' cases were a front page item, but no one has seen the evidence that any pain medication prescriptions were other than needed - except the State Medical Board of Ohio.  Not even the Governor, or the Ohio Court of Appeals.  And the American College of Physicians Magazine was at the same time in the May, 2011 issue, cautioning that internists should be able to handle chronic pain (not defer treating pain) & for the most part that such patients are not at high risk for substance abuse ie cancer, serious fracture, post-surgical, rheumatology patients.  The journals publish that pain is a fact of medical life - the most common symptom seen by primary care physicians.  Earth to Kasich, delivery hurts. 

Some of these Ohio State Medical Board Members have been there since Celeste; they haven't got a clue how to be transparent, or fair, and have medical knowledge that is only 'average' per their published patient reviews (2/4 ratings).  Nothing that happens behind 'closed doors' with 'confidential' is ever fair - it's always SUBJECTIVE - only as good as the Members of the Board. 

But the problem is when a case doesn't meet any legal standards under Ohio law - and there is a stack of such cases - admitted by the last Executive Director of the State Medical Board of Ohio Tom Dilling - that need review, and probably immediate return of the medical licenses - in 1999.  But no one will OK opening of those case files for reforms - as was advised in 1999 - when someone nixed it. 

In 2003, Speaker Larry Householder was told that he couldn't risk a law guaranteeing transparency of physician complaints - it would paralyze Columbus with justified cases for liability damages.  Over the last 20 years, the abuses of the State Medical Board got beyond legal redress 8 years ago. 

Every Ohio physician deserves fairness at the State Medical Board, because once your license is taken you lose your career, your family, your health care insurance & health in the fight.  Once you are falsely accused, your personal life is gone, and one physician was accused that her bone pains & fractures were 'exaggerated' without blood work being allowed (in Columbus where they CAN'T DO BLOOD WORK?), and your ability to get health care in Ohio becomes nihl. 

No one wants to tell the State Medical Board that they have made a medical student Endocrine 101 error = not getting the thyroid function test PANEL with TSH, ACTH, or estradiol/FSH levels for a woman physican.  Women's endocrinology is horribly bungled in Ohio practices - courtesy of the way it is taught in Ohio medical schools.  Catholic high schools botch sex education, but Ohio medical schools bungle endocrine education something worse.  And no one requires that medical students physically attend classes in Ohio - they just check out the video from the library MAYBE.      

Women physicians falsely accused won't be able to get Ohio ob-gyn care, won't be able to have one pregnancy, and won't be able to 'fix' things because they usually take your license just as you were going to have your first child.  In your 30s in Ohio, it becomes obvious to women physicians that you will, for a patient's care or yourself, have to disagree that the boys don't know Endocrine 101 in Ohio - as they skipped the classes in Medical School for the B-ball or tennis court. 

One patient disagreement involved a young woman that an orthopedic took to surgery for shoulder arthroscopy without a HCG pregnancy test, another that a woman kept fracturing without a bone density test - gee shucks it's only Ohio.  False physician cases KILL WOMEN MDs - because it takes their ob-gyn care away, and stress destroys your pituitary-ovarian cycle just like running does.  One woman had to get her ob-gyn care for 5 years in other states - and the NYC MD couldn't tell the State Medical Board of Ohio that they were doing malpractice. 

If women physicians are to improve Ohio medical care for women patients, women MDs can't have their licenses being pulled for the 'personality disorder' of having to disagree with a male colleague's knowledge of women's test acronyms, or the 'personality disorder' of not 'understanding' her male colleagues because their wives don't.  And if their wives haven't got a clue, their women colleagues shouldn't be required to.  And that's the only criteria used for that disorder in Ohio - disagreeing with a more senior male MD gets your license suspended for the Ohio Medical Board's 'help.'  In Ohio 'aequanimitas' means a whole lot more than just being yoga tranquil about the abuses - it means putting out.         

Once a physician loses a medical license, even temporarily, their career is gone, their health care benefits & pension plans get cancelled, and their credibility is gone - their family life is destroyed as well as their practice.  The process takes years to reverse in Ohio - no one is innocent per the Ohio State Medical Board; they can change any test result, any evidence, and any 'confidential' file - your life is cinders Governor Kasich - you don't a house, a mortgage, children, and the soccer mom track. 

The Ohio legislators readily admit that many files at the State Medical Board have been changed many times, looking to 'find a case.'  One case, under Rick Whitehouse, when the physician called she was told that they thought they had finally found a 'case,' which no one could get a copy of though the State Representative was given a quick look at a stack of papers - the Illusionist case. 

The Ohio Court of Appeals will throw out these 'confidential' cases - with evidence that no one can verify - evidence that is authorless & reads like lies - in an age where their are liespotter techniques.  And these files make no sense, but are acted on because no one can SEE them; which makes sure that no one will find them guilty of corruption at the State Medical Board.  It's catch-22; the physician can't see the evidence, and the public can't see the evidence - so no  reforms and no questions.  The evidence doesn't exist at the State Medical Board of Ohio - for any decision since that 'confidential' physician complaint law was made.  That pill-mill stuff was just a publicity stunt of Govenor Kasich without the transparency - a Kasichlie.     

With many cases at the Ohio State Medical Board - these cases do not involve bad patient care - but that the physician 'irked' a Board Member by suggesting that care standards needed improving.  Many States also have a 'third,' non-punitive pathway for physician-physician 'fights' about these care standard ie when  woman physician challeges a male physician doing things like they did 30 years ago. 

There's one such case where the woman MD challenged the male care, about her own medical care, and had her medical license pulled for her 'personality' - 19 years ago now.  When you disagree with a male MD in Ohio, even if he is letting wrist fractures 'ripen' to 'excrescence,' or doing an 'experimental' procedure without the patient's consent - the challenged physician has the woman MD's life destroyed. 

Please open the false case STASH at the State Medical Board for reforms.  Some women physicians are truly physically ill from the neglect of their medical care, the racking to sign a false confession, and the trashing of their physical, emotional, and career lives - and we don't get nine lives like Chloe King.