The Medical Board of Ohio has some antedeluvian practices & procedural rules, but the worst is that of taking women MD medical licenses for disagreements about their own care - for decades this has gone on without Governors reviewing this situation. Governor Kasich has refused to review the bizarre policy externally-to take a woman MD's license for a justified disagreement about her own care. Or to review cases that the Ohio Court of Appeals has thrown out, but been unable to 'hear' because the Medical Board would not provide the case files or evidence.
No one challenges that the care was bad in these cases, but that the woman MD didn't 'handle' it properly and has to have therapy, and never speak of the problems again before she can have her license back - therapy so that she won't sue for negligences that need to be addressed with penalties at the Medical Board. Fractures are not 'fruit.' Leaving fractures to ripen, or not casting properly, means that the orthopedic needs some remedial education, and that he has to refer for any complications - mandated.
Licenses are taken in Ohio if a Board Member had participated in the bad care of a colleague. This sums as, to take a license to let the statute of limitations expire for a Board Member, and then for the Medical Board's 'mistake.' It's all about expiring 'statutes of limitations' at the Ohio Medical Board of Ohio - there's no way to admit a mistake and get the MD back to work with some paid re-education & license expenses - like in every other state when the Board's have to admit that mistakes happen.
The OHio Board is currently in the red 'broke' from investigations into physician sex lives as a way to justify 'mistakes.' And the mess continues because Governor Kasich hasn't got a clue, never observes a Medical Board meeting, and everything is 'confidential' about who gets investigated and who's complaints go into the roundfile and never see daylight.
Governor Kasich can't even do his appointments on time - there's current expired term Members sitting on the Board this month (April, 2013). Governor Kasich has had 4 years to find appointees to put his 'signature' on the Medical Board - and the Chairs are being filled with Members from expired, or expiring, terms - Members from Govenors as far back as Celeste & Voinovich. No one is being 'prepped' to be a Member - sitting in on overlapping sessions to get up to speed on the case files and problems. An internship is done in all other fields.
Complaints about 'friends' of Medical Board Members in Ohio never see 'daylight,' never happen, and other cases are moved ahead when the case is just about the physician objecting to wrong medical care of himself/herself. The difference is that the physician had a Board Member involved in the care gone wrong - the Board protect it's own. Because everything is 'confidential,' no Board Member ever recuses himself/herself. No one knows the conflicts of interest, or the payouts for decisions.
Even when the Ohio Court of Appeals disagrees, saying it is a 'mistake' to take a license for the boys 'ganging up' on a woman MD trying to get more 'recent' care of fractures, the Governor doesn't get the 'message.' Even when the expert for the woman MD co-authors the diagnostic Manual for Psychiatry, the Medical Board will disagree and proclaim their own 'rules' -- taking the woman MD's license for almost 2 decades for the impertinence of daring to disagree. The Ohio Medical Board only license the less-than-average care physicians - nothing brilliant.
The woman MD had to get an out-of-state expert after the Medical Board allowed a new right Ohio psychiatrist to invent a psychiatric diagnosis so that the Board could continue to suspend her medical license - until the statute of limitations expired. Discipline is for not hiding the errors.
In Ohio, experts for the Medical Board will be paid to invent psychiatric diagnoses and treatments - for being a difficult female MD - for showing 'smarts' from training. And in Medical School at CWRU, in the late 1970s, almost a whole class of women disagreed with what was going down at McDonald House for the ob-gyn clerkship - women were trained to disagree and improve things for women - it's not a character flaw. Dr. Anita Steinbergh has gone along with this for 20 years - as long as it's a woman MD - not for DOs. Dr. Steinbergh wasn't trained to improve things - to question - she didn't get into Medical School.
Even when the expert is the US personality disorder guru, the boys in Constituent Affairs won't believe the mistakes. They make fun of the woman MD, say that Governor Kasich won't review her case, and there's nothing that they can do - the boys will be boys. And Mrs. Kasich knows about this case and should be concerned - that so much 'bad care' of women is continuing in Ohio.
Disagreeing, getting the blood work, is something that every Ohio Board Member is allowed to do however - without their medical license being taken - to try to avoid a care mistake with consultation & referral. And it's to be wagered that Governor Kasich will disagree with his own medical care if it strays to the ridiculous, ie a Dr. Nice 'casting' or 'ripening of a fracture.' But Dr. Nice - who pioneered 'ripening of fractures to excrescence' is still practicing, and the Medical Board of Ohio is still endorsing this practice.
So a woman MD not on Club Board, can't disagree without finding herself in a Medical Board Hearing - for her own care gone bonkers - casts that were wrongly angled, splints that didn't work from University Green Road PT & Rehab, x-rays for another fracture, cast padding that she had to buy a box of, physical therapy that her father had to arrange. Dr. Nice didn't know how to angle wrist fractures, or how to reduce them, or what padding to put under the cast, and refused to order physical therapy even though he owned a physical therapy outfit. Dr. Keith angled the fracture experimentally, left a cast on that almost ruptured a tendon, and then refused to order physical therapy. All of this the woman MD, and her family were supposed to pay for without an objection. The Mayo Clinic had to salvage the fracture, and the woman MD had to wear a splint for a year, after which the State Medical Board took her license for daring to request her records for the Mayo Clinic/Cleveland Clinic, and that the Ohio orthopedics stop with the chart editing, harassments, posturing, and lying.
Medical Mistake Laws would have stopped much of this, but they don't exist in Ohio. About 40-some other Governors can sponsor these laws, but not Governor Kasich. In Ohio a woman MD can still get her medical license taken for objecting to long-outdated care abuses, and that the orthopedics won't send the records or a summary to Mayo Clinic. Governor Kasich only takes advice from the truly stupid, the talking heads, and the boys - IQs well below MENSA.
It was a miracle that the one woman MD healed from the care at Hillcrest Hospital at all - her one wrist fracture was left uncasted & deformed for almost 3 weeks - to prove that the boys were 'boss.' Harassment & hazing gone wrong 20 years ago. But it's surely wrong that it still continues without some 'action' from Governor Kasich - to stop these 'false' Medical Board suspensions & disciplines for women MDs disagreeing about their own care. The expert in the case is a NYC US expert - not from Westerville or Dublin, and not from a Community Psychiatric Practice north of Columbus - he's the real deal. In this case, Governor Kasich is disagreeing with the guy who writes the book - and he can't 'see' it.
But the boys at Constituent Affairs think that the woman should just 'get another psych eval' - which won't improve the care problems for women in Ohio. The one woman has an expert who co-authors the Diagnostic Manual of Psychiatry - the Ohio Board just says that they can make up whatever diagnosis they want - to cover for the mistakes of the Medical Board. The Ohio Board has it's own Diagnostic Manual of Psychiatry.
When physicians will do things to a woman MD, they will do it to all women - and fractures will not heal with 'ripening to excrescence' - which makes things so swollen that you increase the fracture healing time. And once the Medical Board starts to call the woman MD 'psych names' - even if she hasn't got one criteria, the situation degenerates to a mud-wrestling fight of experts - where the Medical Board has resorted to ingenious never-before-heard-of diagnoses & the faking of tests - while the woman MD has no career and her bone condition is allowed no treatment. 'Doing harm' is what the Medical Board does best to woman MD careers.
The Ohio Court of Appeals in the one case, told the Medical Board to 'solve the case' in 'another way' in 1993 - that it was just the 'boys ganging up' on the woman MD, calling her names, and saying whatever, because there had been mistakes & problems in her fracture care. Further, that these mistakes were not her fault. The woman went to see a psychologist because she was threatened - that the one orthopedic would 'make or break her,' keep her from ever practicing medicine again in any state, and 'kill' her (figuratively at least).
It's sad that Ohio care disagreements get to the loss of the medical license of the woman MD who is more recently trained, doesn't want the old crap of care done on her, and is trying to improve things by example for other women - that they will challenge 'old wives tales' of care paradigms.
Currently the Medical Board has an Interim Director - the Director of Investigations - responsible for
bankrupting the Medical Board with costly irrelevant investigations, reading of personal letters, the inventing of psychiatric diagnoses that only happen in Ohio. It's Creative Writing 101 at the State Medical Board of Ohio. When all else fails as a case, the Medical Board makes up that the women MDs have some occult psychiatric problem that they failed to disclose to the Medical Board - a personality disorder of objecting to bad care - admittedly bad care.
It's a charade, a comedy of errors, the Medical Board has been told for 15 years that making up psychiatric diagnosis to solve care problems is not the way to go - but they persist in this under Governor Kasich's lack of leadership.
The leaderboard of Medical Board Members on the Board's website displays the problems. Anita Steinbergh's term is up 4/25/2013 - and she should not be reappointed after 5 terms of taking women MD licenses for disagreeing with continued 'bad' Ohio care. Mark A. Bechtel, M.D., Supervising Member - his term WAS UP 3/18/2013 - but he's from Westerville and can do what he wants at the Medical Board - he's a Kasich neighbor. Darshan Mahajan M.D - his term was up last month 3/18/2013 - but he's still sitting on the Medical Board. The Medical Board is outdated Members, expiring Members, and no Director. Governor Kasich campaigned to reform this - to get a 'new' Medical Board and it's same old, same old in Columbus. The boys will be boys.