State boards lax on abusive healthcare workers

State medical boards should be doing more to combat abusive healthcare workers, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards.

For example, with only 1 to 4 percent of sexual assault victims reporting incidents, state boards should offer more education on the provider abuse topic, conduct public outreach, and issue stronger physician disciplinary action, and states should criminalize sexual exploitation of patients, notes the Boston Herald op-ed today, entitled "State board lets docs off easy."

Twenty-three states make clinicians' sexual abuse of a patient a criminal act, although states vary in legislation.

In another article, the Personnel Board, a lesser-known public state board, rehired 93 employees in the past three years in California, including a psychiatric hospital aide fired for allegedly striking a severely disabled patient with a shoe and a nurse's aide who allegedly stole thousands of dollars from elderly residents of a veterans' home, reported the Los Angeles Times yesterday. Before state employees in California go to court, the Personnel Board reviews their cases. Although the board upholds most decisions that fired the employees, the agency has rehired 93 employees, many with full salary and benefits, according to the article.

A report by Public Citizen earlier this year revealed that state medical boards failed to discipline more than half (55 percent) of the nation's physicians who have had their clinical privileges revoked or restricted by the hospitals where they worked.

"Either state medical boards are receiving this disturbing information from hospitals but not acting upon it, or much less likely, they are not receiving the information at all," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group and overseer of the study.

For more information:
- read the LA Times article
- read the Boston Herald op-ed

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