William Heisel

<p>Surely if a doctor has gone to trial in a malpractice case and been ordered to pay millions by a judge or jury, this would catch the attention of the Illinois Division of Professional Regulation.</p> <p>This is what I was thinking when reading about some recent huge malpractice judgments against doctors in the Chicago area. I tried to see if any information about these payments showed up in the state’s professional <a href="https://www.idfpr.com/dpr/licenselookup/results.asp">license lookup</a> system.</p> <p>Every attempt ended in disappointment.</p>

<p>When I sent my last <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/doctors-behaving-badly-illinois-obstetrician%E2%80%99s-malpractice-case-leaves-one-patient-victorious-">Doctors Behaving Badly</a> post to my editor, she responded with a bunch of great questions:</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>How is it possible to take down a major database that most states have?</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Does this mean no one can check their doctor online now?</em></p>

<p>For medical malpractice attorneys in Chicago, Dr. Robert Levi-D’Ancona’s name sounds like victory. For patients, however, his name could become synonymous with a major patient safety defeat.</p>

<p>The Medical Board of California told Orange County Register health reporter Courtney Perkes that it was rare for a doctor to be disciplined, allowed to return to practice and then disciplined again. She wanted to see if that was actually true, and so she asked the board for every record of a doctor who had petitioned for a license reinstatement.

<p>Take away an artist’s paints. She may just use her fingers.</p> <p>Take away a chef’s knives. He may opt to smash, grate or whip the ingredients instead.</p> <p>But what if you are a doctor and the medical board takes away your ability to perform facelifts, liposuction, breast augmentation and tummy tucks?</p> <p>If you are <a href="https://isecure.bom.idaho.gov/BOMPublic/LicensePublicRecord.aspx?Board=…. Carl Freeman Wurster</a> in Boise, you beg.</p>

<p>A judge this week <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/14/local/la-me-conrad-murray-20100… an attempt</a> by the state of California to temporarily ban Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson.</p> <p>Now the ball is in the Medical Board of California’s court. The board rightly sought to use the criminal justice system first to stop Murray from practicing.</p><p>But few reporters picked up on the fact that the criminal system isn’t the only route.</p>

<p>My friend <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/farnsworth-248950-says-blood.html">C… Farnsworth</a> recently published a book called <a href="http://www.presidentsvampire.com/">Blood Oath</a>. It’s about a vampire who works for the president. After a reading he gave last week, I asked him, “Knowing that you are only one book into a three-book deal, why did you decide to put Frankenstein, werewolves, a vampire and zombies all in the first book?” He said, “It’s the Jack Kirby school of writing. If you have it, put it all in.”</p>

<p>Courtney Perkes could have phoned it in. She was the fourth reporter to have covered the seemingly never-ending saga of Dr. Andrew Rutland, an obstetrician who, most recently, has been accused of botching an abortion that led to a woman’s death. A story that requires a lot of “the Register reported in 2001” sentences can quickly become an exercise in burnishing boilerplate. But Perkes took a different tack. She used the Rutland case to ask an important question: how often do doctors like Rutland lose their licenses, only to get them back?

<p>The <a href="http://hawaii.gov/dcca/pvl">Hawaii Professional and Vocational Licensing division</a> could not possibly make it harder to find information about a doctor’s misdeeds.</p>

<p>For the past year and a half, Julie Sullivan at the <em>Oregonian</em>, one of the country’s most consistent and skilled investigative reporters, has been writing about troops that were exposed to the cancer-causing chemical hexavalent chromium in Iraq.