Complaint Review: State Representative Matthew Dolan - Columbus Ohio

Legislative fraud; allowing obsolete Ohio Medical Board legislation, which does not allow physicians to know what they are accused of in complaints about them at the State Medical Board of Ohio, or by whom (patients/colleagues/hospitals), to remain in effect without amendment, for the last 4 years, so that the strong legal lobby in the legislature (of which he is a Member) benefits monetarily with every false case filed and false discipline enacted at the State Medical Board of Ohio against an innocent physician. All physician complaints need to be available to the physician, and not 'confidential' - this 'confidential' law, which is broken regularly by the Medical Board itself for certain physicians, protects no one and is legal fallacy (insanity). Physicians can't prove their innocence, careers are destroyed, lives ruined, and Ohio taxpayers 'foot the bill' in not having good sincere caring physicians in areas of need - which exist in rural Ohio. Mr. Dolan has allowed the situation to continue, and he's been told what the consequences are for patients and falsely charged physicians. He's lied on the phone directly to a physician friend of mine from RI who tried to talk some 'sense' into him, and even Father John (who he's known since high school) at Gilmour hasn't been able to get Mr. Dolan to reconsider this situation. Mr. Dolan listens to no one, and like every other male in Ohio never makes a mistaken assessment - but he knows about money and legal fees.

The number of false 'cases' or investigations is so high, that every physician in Ohio is required to carry malpractice insurance to protect against the State Medical Board of Ohio, ie not patients or patient mistakes -- Ohio Board mistakes that are 'unfixable' under current laws with no discovery. Ohio is about the worst state in the country (bottom 5) for false suspensions/disciplines at the State Medical Board level, and everyone knows this, ie the Federation of State Medical Boards, current Governor Ted Strickland, and Lt. Governor Lee Fisher. The false case appeals go on forever with this roundabout - physicians are told to admit lies, endure perpetual fixed 'evaluations' at Board discretion (diagnoses are made on physicians by the Medical Board without the usual criteria or tests), and get rehabilitation to 'fit in' with the testosterone-driven Ohio medicine. Harassment complaints result in the suspension of the female physician's license, while the 'boys being boys' continues = as in what's going on currently with Attorney General Marc Dann's office. There are never external reviews, just internal memos.

The Ohio State Medical Board never admits a mistake, and has no pathway/algorithm to handle their mistakes or errors in assessment of physician 'impairment.' The 'X' on the form to dismiss a case rarely happens, and only after millions of legal defense dollars and years of trouble; there's no easy legal defense of the Pandora's box in the Ohio Board files. Once you are falsely accused and suspended, there's no end to the 'black hole'; the Medical Board will go after, misusing state funds, you until they find some case even if it takes decades and boxes of lies. Many cases involve no patient care problems, drugs, etc; just colleague disagreements, failures to refer enough patients to the 'right' physicians who have 'friends' on the State Medical Board of Ohio, or failures to 'cover up' the mistakes of a 'friend' of a Member(s). The Membership at the State Medical Board of Ohio has been stable for over a decade now, and the selection/confirmation process is seriously flawed so that once appointed the terms multiply without any effectual legislative reconsideration of the merit(s) of reappointment of that Member. Once the name is proferred by the Governor, it takes an 'act of God' to get another name to the Senate Health Committee. So then the cases, such as mine, go on for decades, with the same Members voting against licensure, as the Members are never wrong and the physician (ie me) can't defend themself to resolve the complaint with 'confidential' files and no 'mistake laws' at the Board level, and no civil/state court is able to review the files/decision and make recommendations ie the Ohio Court of Appeals can't do anything and no other court will without the 'confidential' complaint that the Ohio Board guards like gold in my case and others. Papal infallibility is second to Ohio State Medical Board infallibility. The missed diagnosis in my case (which I disagreed about to 'save' myself), was a 'case' of no blood work being ever ordered in Ohio, and is a 2-digit million dollar miss for other patients. But now the Medical Board is partially responsible for the bone problem, continued fractures and liability = my health is partially destroyed from neglect. There are no non-disciplinary paths for colleague disagreements/care problems/paradigm improvements (happens naturally with different years of training and dates of certification), and no 'mistake laws' so that mistakes can be handled in a sane professional way by the State Medical Board - who should have consulted with the Cleveland Clinic experts before they acted in a drunken emergency session on a night in June 1992 stirred up with all manner of hearsay and exaggerations by a former classmate of mine from medical school - Dr. Carla O'Day. [She was older and hated most of the younger women, she even threatened the Deans when she didn't get her way.] Mistake laws are in effect in 35+ other states, and would have prevented my having to complain about a colleague - what started my 'false' case. It's not just the mistakes, those who know about the mistakes, whether the physician-patient or colleagues, are all at risk of false complaints and licensure troubles - until mistakes laws happen. Presently, no one knows what I did to merit the suspension of my medical license for 15 years except complain about the care and orthopedics in Ohio. That should have been a no-brainer non-disciplinary care improvement situation (there was no investigation of my complaint, the counter-complaint was fabricated and acted on without discovery) - women's medical care is still botched regularly in Ohio. The diagnosis that I had was rare, 1% of women, and would not have resulted in any 'case' against the original physicians if they had only referred and not lied about having diagnostic/care difficulties. Ohio physicians have no 'out' but to lie in Ohio until 'mistake laws' allow them to admit uncertainty, unanticipated results, and refer early on for consultation and help. Males won't do mistakes until it's required. And Ohio physicians have no protections against false disciplines at the State Medical Board level until the Ohio Board has it's own set of mistake laws and redress for the physicians whose lives have been ruined by the administrative excesses and 'reign of terror' at the current Ohio State Medical Board.

When you can't admit the medical mistake in a timely non-punitive way, the patient or the physician-patient sustains the injury without chance of timely correction, improvement, or ameliorative medical consultant help. Consultants can't 'take the case' until they 'get the case,' with the file of what happened. Women physicians, when they complain about harassments or poor care by male colleagues, are ordered to unending 'evaluations' in Ohio to try to find some personal factor or diagnosis that will get the male physicians 'off the hook' (ie fishing expeditions with the medical license as 'bait') - while their medical care is neglected, their personal life ruined, and their career trashed. Many male physicians have 'friends' on the State Medical Board of Ohio, and can get their complaint files to correct them or counter-complain, against state law - a law that applies only to women without 'friends.' And the women on the State Medical Board of Ohio are the worst enemies of other women physicians - Anita Steinbergh DO - who has told me to have aequanimitas, read 'Icebound,' and go along with the lies and punishment that the Board has decreed. I have more training, certification, and degrees than she has in spades, but she's been diagnosing me for 15 years now with something that I don't have while I continued to fracture - something she just couldn't admit or see? Even women admitting mistakes on the State Medical Board just doesn't happen.

Mr. Dolan, knowing the mess at the Ohio State Medical Board has 'sat on' the present law, and is currently unchallenged for legislative re-election in November 2008.

Basically he's intentionally failed to amend the present unjust, ridiculous legal-fee-serving laws so that (1) all physicians/health care providers, not just those with "friends" on the State Medical Board of Ohio, can get any complaints against them and defend in a timely and appropriate way, within 2 years, without the complaint being "confidential," the evidence "hearsay," and the complaint constantly amended (so that cases go on for decades with unending double jeopardy and different sets of lies that no court can get at as it's "confidential" and constantly morphing); (2) failed to consider/author medical "mistake" laws, as in legal precedents in 35+ other states (just get 35 other laws with office research and rephrase), so that medical "mistakes" can be admitted within hours, days, or weeks) and corrected in a non-disciplinary non-public way at least initially (if you wait until the mistake is admitted in Ohio, the patient suffers the injury without chance of correction and the chart becomes a battleground currently there are no "mistakes" in Ohio, just patients that made the physicians "do bad care"; (4) failure to amend present laws at the State Medical Board to include a non-punitive path for care problems/changes/updating/improving (eg as in Minnesota); (4) failure to amend present unjust laws so that women physicians are not ordered to unending "evaluations," nor judged "impaired" if they refuse them, in situations of colleague disagreement over medical/surgical care paradigms, care procedures or situations of "unanticipated" outcomes in women patients being made "too much of" for certain physician's comfort or malpractice insurer; (5) failure to amend present laws so that the strong legal lobby in Ohio doesn't profit from every false case filed at the State Medical Board of Ohio against a physician (the current Lt. Governor's law firm made millions this way in the last 15 years and is now "retired" from this practice - able to retire unlike many); and (5) failure to listen in any constructive sense, or do anything but lie/fudge/fake/play high school "phone tag," when any well-meaning well-credentialed physician/lawyer calls him about this -- as it has affected my career and the careers of a number of other physicians with no patient complaints -- which for Ohio patients means totally wasted physician careers which are needed in existing medically underserved areas in Ohio.

Matt Dolan has refused to amend the present law so that Ohio medicine can move forward with 'mistake laws,' so that women physicians can defend themselves against false complaints at the State Medical Board from male physicians or colleagues that they couldn't 'satisfy' or 'understand,' so that physicians can get their files at the State Medical Board to correct them for jobs, other state licenses, and their malpractice insurers - keeping the cost of medical care down (ie state budget). Every legislator in Ohio knows, that because of corruption/fraud for so many years at the State Medical Board of Ohio, that if a new law is enacted allowing the opening of physician's files at the State Medical Board, that Columbus will be inundated/paralyzed with file requests, corrections, and suits for false unnecessary unmerited investigations and disciplinary actions, harassments, and suspensions. My file is only one of these messy files, but many of us would be willing to sign non-suit agreements just to move on.

Mr. Dolan needs to step up to the Ohio legislative 'plate;' allowing an investigation into my case and others so that new legislation can be framed in Ohio in tandem with the Medical Board laws in other neighboring states, eg Pennsylvania has one of the 'strictest' medical mistakes laws. Mistake laws will allow the physicians that saw the mistakes made in my case to come forward and tell the truth so that I can get on with my life (Dr. Edward Floyd of Mayfield Heights) -- that I didn't make too much of getting no care, no workup, and then losing everything by asking for help from the State Medical Board of Ohio - where under the present 'reign of terror' licenses are lopped off at every suggestion, whim and colleague jealousy - creme suspension.

Rita

Mayfield Heights, Ohio

U.S.A.