State Medical Boards: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver discusses state medical boards, how they often fail to protect patients from bad doctors, and what it all has to do with Melrose Place.

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[jaiethemusicman]

As a physician I'm glad this is getting some attention. I just wish something would be done about insurance companies refusing to cover chronic medications, resulting in harm to the patients we prescribe them to.

[brianspoelhof]

As an individual with a physician spouse and a pharmacist myself, this issue should be taken 100% seriously. Not just for physicians but for other healthcare professionals as well (pharmacists, nurses, etc.). We need more patient advocates at the table, more reporting, and boards that review cases and take immediate action.

We should go one step further and move towards a national licensing system with unified standards.

[carlairving]

As a child with severe asthma, I was once brought into the ER for breathing difficulties. The pediatre looked at me for maybe 10 seconds, than told my mom I was having a very slight cold and was making it up to miss school, and he discharged us that moment. 5 hours later, I was back in the ER. Long story short, I almost died of pneumonia at 10, was hospitalized for a week and had to quarantine at home for 2 months with our family doctor as only visitor as I was too week and the infection nearly vanquished all my immune system.

I think about that pediatric ER doctor from time to time. I wonder how many kids he discharged to their death.

Not the only story I have, but the most serious one that happened to me. A funny one is the pharmacist who rolled their eyes and told me "got it, we'll call someone else" upon seeing my prescription for the wrong medicine." He then explained that that doctor was known by all professionals in the neighborhood to be an old fart who should've retired years before.

Medicine is wild sometimes.

[SkyeSpider]

Thank you for covering this.

I had a simple surgery in 2008 for a torn ligament in my wrist. My surgeon botched it. In trying to take him to court, I learned that he’d injured dozens of patients permanently including paralyzing one from the neck down.

I wasn’t able to sue him because Oklahoma capped tort suit judgments at $150k (it’s now much lower), and cost to take it to trial was much more than that.

I’ve had 6 more surgeries on the wrist. I’m in constant chronic pain and have only 30% use of my right hand due to it. I’ve been stuck in pain management since (opioids).

I was a musician when it happened. It ended my career. I’m also autistic, and had difficulty with jobs in general. Now no one will hire me with a physical disability as well.

My original doctor got no punishment from the medical board or any of the hospitals he practiced at.

This shit needs to end.

[cguyre]

They took away the working hour maximum for residents at one point because it wasn’t statistically decreasing errors but two things about that: I know residents who were forced to fudge their timesheets to make it look like they were under 80 hours a week when the limits were in place and regardless of the validity of the statistics I don’t want a doctor working on me in their 80th hour working that week. That’s insane.

[coryglanton]

Great story! I wish you had covered the Arkansas medical board. The now former director of the state medical board is being accused of holding patients against their will in a psychiatric facility in order to bill their insurance more. His name is Brian Hyatt.

[darlene]

I'm a retired RN and graduated in 1978. I've seen many bad doctors and RN's during my career. I also saw when insurance companies started dictating patient care. It was horrific then and worse now!

[rcranes]

Another doctor here, thanking you for this report. We ask the public to trust us and to listen to our expert opinions, but that should go hand in hand with transparency and policing ourselves and our own. We probably need federal legislation that opens the database to the public, but also requires hospitals to report every single discipline incident.

[DanaGoldbergMD]

As a physician, I can say I am disgusted by physicians who skirt the laws. A national system needs to standardize reporting so that bad nurses and doctors cannot hop from job to job.

[thomasnguyen]

I work in a hospital; there is one thing that I have yet to hear John speak on. Medical boards are full of executives. While the COVID pandemic was raging on, one of our executives had the balls to tell is about getting away from the Bay Area and taking a month off at his vacation home. So when you say the boards are underfunded, no. The funds are just going to the top earners, just like the rest of the economy. These executives never had to take care of patients at all, but made MILLIONS before, during, and to this day.

[Piketom]

"The white coat code of silence." That reminds me of something, cough *law enforcement* cough.

[MoneyMikeMurray]

I had a lithotripsy(waves to break up kidney stones) and should be in and out, same day. No issue...
They told my girlfriend and mother that I would complain about the pain but I didn't need to return to the hospital. I knew immediately when walking out of the hospital that was something wrong but was repeatedly told I was fine. Long story short 6 hours later I returned to the hospital and apparently they "aimed wrong" i was bleeding internally. I was hospitalized 11 days, was very close to needing a blood transfusion and the lower 2/3 of my body turned people for weeks.
I was told it's a routine type mistake they happen. Of course, i have no recourse..

[TheMartuksxxxx]

This makes House MD very realistic, how he got away with everything he did

[allisonhoff]

A member of my family was molested by a doctor and when she tried to do something about it she was told that she could EITHER report it to the police OR the medical board. She was told that they could not overlap and if she tried, then they would both drop the case/complaint. So, she had to choose if it was more important to her to try to get him jail time (which was unlikely) or if she should try to get his license taken (which was borderline impossible). She chose the medical board in hopes that it would protect other women. They forced her to testify in front of him while he laughed at her to her face, then they said, "we'll note your complaint" and proceeded to do nothing. Years later a detective came to the door and said he'd been looking for witnesses against the doctor for over year and had only finally gotten her name in a very round-about way. He had apparently abused dozens of women, if not more. I am disabled and after years of being treated like crap I had already lost faith that most doctors actually knowing what they're doing, but her experience made me scared of the whole system. We need NPDB to be accessible, we need systems that don't punish you for reporting other doctors or nurses, we need to be safe to get health care!

[JYoutubes]

I just had surgery through Mercy on Thursday. Every time I was moved into a new room, I had to tell the doctors/nurses what procedures I was having. Turns out that was a good thing, because the doctors had the wrong procedures listed 3 separate times in their records. After the surgery was over, I asked if everything had gone ok; they told me they only had record of one procedure and I needed to call the surgeon over to ensure he had actually completed both things. The estimate I was originally given only listed one procedure, but then 2 days before surgery I was given another estimate for 3x the price that listed both. I could go on, but the amount of miscommunication and confusion among the staff was legitimately frightening going into surgery. I did not trust those people with my care.

[poocgyf]

PLEASE do an episode on physician training in the US. The process to match to residency and the governing bodies that regulate residency programs are ridiculously outdated. Trainee burnout and suicide is addressed with less than useless "wellness modules" across the country. An episode highlighting this issue would be incredible

[Neukids]

As a doctor, I would WANT the NPDB to be robust and accessible. We already have a huge lack of doctors, and the bad doctors will make things worse. MAKE NPDB accessible to ALL

[frankiesayspanic]

i genuinely thought that cpr scene was supposed to be like a “cake or real” thing

[kylebowles]

I've learned that "the process" is code for "stop thinking, reasoning, or asking, and do what I say"

[samredbird]

Nurse in my facility bounced from place to place, after multiple errors and sleeping on the job. Turns out she wasn’t a nurse, just stole someone’s identity. Ohio has only one identifier, name. If name matches a nurses name, congratulations, you too can be a nurse! And, yes, not a damn thing happened to her when she was found out.