Texan At Risk Because the Texas Medical Board Is Not Disciplining Doctors | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
The Dallas Morning News reported that the Texas Medical Board has not followed up on its promise to get tough and to discipline doctors who engage in misconduct. According to the article, the Texas Medical Board is more focused on protecting doctors than the public. The article claims that 85 percent of the Board’s investigations led to no sanctions at all, and the number of private deal-cutting meetings – the typical generator of lower-level penalties – more than quadrupled from seven years ago. The News also reported that of the 131 doctors were disciplined at the meeting. Only two had their licenses revoked, and then only because they quit contesting the cases against them. A handful of others were suspended or surrendered their licenses rather than fight. “We’re not really in the business of jerking licenses,” said Dr. Lee Anderson, a Fort Worth ophthalmologist. “Our primary purpose in the disciplinary process is remediation.”
The importance of a Texas Medical Board that takes its business of disciplining doctors who engage in misconduct is critical. Texas is “a favorable location to practice medicine” because of a relatively strong economy and because the law in Texas imposes a cap on malpractice awards against medical providers which has discouraged patients from bring valid claims against medical providers who injure their patients through their negligence or gross negligence. Because of the limitations on damage awards in malpractice cases patients who previously filed malpractice suits are no longer able to find lawyers who are willing to file a lawsuit on a medical malpractice case, and now their only chance of holding the doctor accountable and protecting future patients from similar harm is by filing a complaint with the Texas Medical Board. According to the article, such complaints are up 35% compared to the time period prior to the imposition of the caps on damage awards.
In addition, the article pointed out that the process itself which is largely controlled by doctors and which is confidential calls into question its motives. By law, 12 of its 19 members are doctors. In addition, the process lacks transparency that the public needs from the Board to engender trust in its deciesions. Doctors have managed to enact laws that make the process secret. As a result, the public has no way of determining why the Board did not impose more significant disciplinary measures. Virtually all complaint and investigation records are confidential. Penalties generally are worked out privately and even Agreed orders do not reference patient names which makes the incidents more difficult to investigate by the general public. In addition, even when discipline is taken against a doctor, the patient involved in not notified of the discipline unless the patient filed a complaint.
The article cited several specific instances where the Board either imposed no penalty or what was presented as a slap on the hand despite the need to protect the public. The examples included:
•1) In August, the board announced decisions on four sex-related cases. Two involved doctors whom judges had already sentenced for crimes against children. Two involved psychiatrists found to have had affairs with adult patients – potentially sexual assault under Texas law, but they’ve not been charged. The child abusers were allowed to go on practicing medicine, though not with kids. The other two are working without restrictions.
•2) In August the Board also considered complaints against:
•a. Two doctors convicted of federal crimes. One of the federal convicts, was required to complete 22 hours of continuing medical education and must pass a test on legal issues;
•b. A neurosurgeon, Dr. Matthew J. Wills, who four times operated on the wrong body part four times whose punishment was requiring the neurosurgeon to complete 10 hours of continuing medical education. Dr. Wills now works as a neurosurgeon in Topeka, Kan., and according to the article, his boss called the sanction “over the top” and “a little bizarre.”
•c. A cardiologist found to have performed dozens of invasive procedures with little or no cause; and
•d. Seven physicians linked to a death including an ER doctor who was too drunk to intubate a patient – a patient who then died. That doctor must complete substance abuse therapy and submit to urine tests.
•e. The Board said it was uncommon for a sex offender to keep his medical license, in the case of Dr. Jeffrey Klem, a cardiologist who is on criminal probation after twice pleading guilty to injuring a child, in 2007 in Beaumont and in 2009 in Houston. Board records say the Beaumont plea was a response to “three allegations of unwanted sexual contact with a minor.” The board barred Klem from treating anyone younger than 21 for the next 15 years and required that he have a chaperone when treating adults. Dr. Klem must also consult with a psychiatrists, take a “professional boundaries” course and pay a $5,000 fine.
What does it take for the board to revoke a license? Consider the case of William Littlejohn, one of the two doctors who reached the end of the line in August. Dr Littlejohn ran a pain management and detoxification practice in Fort Worth but had been suspended since 2006, when the board deemed him “a continuing threat to the public health and welfare as a result of a mental condition.” Board records say Littlejohn provided a mentally ill woman with large amounts of painkillers and a gun. She nearly died of overdoses and invested more than $600,000 in an urgent care clinic the doctor was running, the records say. Littlejohn acknowledged providing the gun, saying that the woman needed it to protect herself against violent relatives. Only later, he said, did he realize she was bipolar.
As of the end of the fiscal year 2009, there are:
•· Approximately 48,000 practicing statewide
•· 820 doctors are on medical probation
•· 3,129 newly licensed doctors in 2009
•· 6,968 complaints received by Texas Medical Board in 2009
•· The board has initiated 2,873 investigations
•· 411 doctors disciplined
•· Only 10 licenses were revoked
•· 21 licenses surrendered in lieu of disciplinary proceedings
You can check to see if you doctor has a disciplinary history by viewing the Texas Medical Board’s Web site, http://www.tmb.state.tx.us/. Click “Check Your Doctor” in the blue bar on the left, then accept the usage terms and use the search form.
We encourage you to read the full article from the Dallas Morning News posted on October 11, 2009 as “Physician misconduct often tolerated by state medical board, analysis finds.”
UPDATE: WOMAN CONVICTED OF NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE AFTER BEING DISTRACTED BY TALKING ON HER CELL PHONE | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
Following the October 8, 2009 guilty verdict and sentencing of Jeri Montgomery (24) a Humble, Texas woman for negligent homicide in connection with the deadly accident she caused in which she was accused of being distracted by talking on her cell phone, the Harris County District Attorney calls the actions of a Humble woman accused of causing an accident after getting off of her cell phone selfish and narcissistic. The jury convicted Jeri Montgomery of negligent homicide, and she is serving a 30 day jail sentence for causing the accident that killed Chance Wilcox. She was also sentenced to ten years probation.
The Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos commented, “She’s talking on her darn phone and then she misses her entrance to the freeway,” said. “Big deal. Just drive down to the next one. Why endanger everybody on the road? Part of that is selfishness.” While driving and talking on a cell phone is not against the law in Harris County, unless you are in a school zone, Texas law allows prosecutors to press charges for Negligent Homicide in the event they believe a driver of a motor vehicle was negligent for any reason. In this case, the negligence involves driving while being distracted because of the use of a cell phone. As a result, the District Attorney’s warning is clear to drivers in Harris County that if you are driving in Harris County, you should consider yourself warned. If people are driving while being distracted, regardless of what the distraction is, and engage in another reckless act and cause an accident,” they may be charged with a crime.
Interestingly, the convicted driver, Jeri Montgomery, reportedly told a CBS Reporter that she doesn’t think she got a fair shot, and her attorney has filed for an appeal.
This case is important not only to drivers in Harris County, but to all Texans because it highlights that while the law in Texas does not specifically make it illegal to use a cellular telephone while driving in all situations, in an appropriate case, criminal charges can be brought against drivers who drive recklessly because of being distracted by using the phone. See our blog for a summary of the current Texas laws that make it illegal to drive while using a cellular telephone, but beware that some cities have enacted ordinances that may also limit the use of a telephone while driving
Crime-Infested Apartments Targeted By Irving | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
The City of Irving has enacted a new law that goes into effect on January 1, 2010 that allows police to target crime-infested apartment complexes. The new ordinance puts pressure on landlords to clean up their properties or risk being shut down. Under this new law a threshold is established for individual apartment complexes. If the crime rates surpass it, the landlords must take part in a mandatory crime reduction program that costs $250. Police work with the landlords to improve overall security including lighting, fencing and landscaping. Tenants will also have to undergo background checks by the Department of Public Safety.
A similar law has been enacted in both Houston and in Dallas. In Houston, 30 apartment communities have been forced to implement a mandatory crime reduction program. Since that time, those apartment communities have seen a 26% decrease in crimes at those communities.
Part of the reason for this new law is that Irving Police say:
- 62% of all robberies of individuals in Irving take place in apartment complexes
- 48% of all auto thefts in the city take place in apartment parking lots and
- 41% of aggravated assaults in Irving take place in apartment complexes.
While this new law is a good step towards cleaning up our neighborhoods and hopefully reducing crime by requiring landlords to be actively involved in steps to decrease crime at the risk of having the complex shut down, the law does not specify whether an apartment complex that is required to develop a mandatory crime reduction program, but negligently fails to either implement the program or to comply with it, can be held liable for such conduct. More importantly, often the apartment complexes that are located in the highest crime zones, do not carry liability insurance. As more and more cities begin to implement these laws, it will be interesting to see how the Texas Courts handle these cases particularly since these communities are still expected to be located in areas of high concentration of violent crimes.
Currently, Texas law is very difficult to overcome the legal hurdles to hold a landlord liable for the criminal conduct of others, but in the Texas Supreme Court cases addressing the issue, none of those cases have involved an apartment complex that had a crime rate that mandated the complex enact a crime reduction program. For example, it would be interesting to see how the opinion of the Texas Supreme Court might differ in the case of Timberwalk Apartments v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998) if the apartment complex at issue had been under a legal duty to implement a crime reduction program but failed to do so. In Timberwalk, the tenant sued landlord after she was raped in her apartment. The Court held that the incident was not foreseeable as a matter of law. The Court noted that “Crime may be visited upon virtually anyone at any time or place,” but criminal conduct of a specific nature at a particular location is never foreseeable merely because crime is increasingly random and violent and may possibly occur almost anywhere, especially in a large city. In deciding whether the crime was foreseeable, Courts must consider whether any criminal conduct previously occurred on or near the property, how recently it occurred, how often it occurred, how similar the conduct was to the conduct on the property, and what publicity was given the occurrences to indicate that the landowner knew or should have known about them.
Dallas High School Girls Being Hazed in Big Sis-Lil Sis Program | Dallas, Texas, Personal Injury Attorney Blog
High school girls attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas report being hazed as part of the “Big Sis – Lil Sis” program at the school. The program is designed to help freshmen girls be mentored by junior girls and to encourage the girls to get to know the school and each other better. Recently, however, one of the freshmen girls involved in the program has reported that she and the other freshmen girls were forced for several hours (under the guise of “tradition”) into uncomfortable situations that included the following:
- Underage drinking
- Smoking marijuana
- Pole-dancing on street signs
- Being photographed while giving lap dances to boys
- Yelling obscenities at fast-food drive-through windows
- Being covered with eggs, flour, mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise
- Being forced to take off their bras and wear them around their necks while running through sprinkler systems in their pajamas.
- Simulating oral sex, at time with older high school boys watching
The Dallas Independent School District said that the information has been reported to the proper authorities and that an investigation is being conducted.
Being “tradition” does not make hazing actions right or legal. If these events truly are a tradition of this “Big Sis – Lil Sis” program, many other young girls have been subjected to this hazing. Not only is hazing a crime in Texas and in most other states, but it is also a violation of the Code of Conduct of most schools and universities. As a result, the girls who participate in this behavior are risking both criminal prosecution and disciplinary action from the school.
If you or a family member have lost a loved one due to a hazing incident or a suspected hazing incident, we encourage you to take prompt action by reporting the incident to the appropriate legal and school authorities, investigating the matter with the assistance of an experienced attorney familiar with hazing cases, and knowing your rights.
Very few law firms have experience with handling these cases. Rachel Montes has represented families in the area that are victims of hazing. Although we are located in Irving, Texas (Dallas/ Fort Worth area), our team accepts hazing cases from any state, including California.
The Media’s Impact on the Public’s Perception of Health Issues | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
According to American College of Emergency Physicians, the publicity surrounding the death of actress Natasha Richardson, who died suddenly from a head injury after a fall has triggered a 73 percent increase in emergency room visits for head trauma. In the month following her death, the number of patients seen by doctors in 19 urban, suburban, and rural emergency rooms in New York and New Jersey in March 2009 rose dramatically. However, when the media stories regarding the actress’ death began to wane, the number of emergency room visits for head trauma returned to the pre-March 2009 levels.
“The study quantified what we already knew: when the media make people more aware of a disease process, they get scared and come to the emergency room,” Brian Walsh of Morristown Memorial Hospital said. In this case, “the media played up the ‘sudden death syndrome’ aspect – the idea that you can have a minor fall, look great afterwards, and suddenly die.” Likewise, media campaigns that increase knowledge by encouraging people to go to an emergency room if, for example, they show signs of a stroke or heart attack, can be helpful. However, in the case of of patients who visited the emergency room concerned about head trauma, only 2 or 3 percent of those had a significant injury. Mr. Walsh also reflected on the current reports of the swine flu. “Every time someone dies, we get a bump in visits. But most people aren’t dying from it, and everyone is paranoid. The extra knowledge is making them scared.”
Pushing for a Nationwide Ban on Driving While Texting | Dallas, Texas Personal Injury Attorney Blog
As a general rule, it is not illegal to text while driving in Texas. AAA has initiated a nationwide campaign to pass federal and state laws banning text messaging by all drivers in all 50 states by year 2013. AAA is seeking to implement legislation that will make it illegal to send, write or read text messages or e-mails while driving.
As of September 1, 2009, for the first time, the Texas legislature imposed state-wide restrictions on the use of cell phones and pda’s. The new laws include:
•1. No handset talking or texting while driving are allowed when the school zone is active. Hands-free devices while driving and handset use WHILE STOPPED are allowed as are calls in certain emergency situations.
•2. Teenage drivers are prohibited from using wireless devices while driving. This includes a ban on talking on a cell phone, from sending or receiving text messaging and from sending or reading emailing while driving.
•3. Learners permit holders are prohibited from using handheld cell phones in the first six months of driving.
•4. School bus operators prohibited from using cell phones while driving if children are present.
Research also shows that approximately one in five drivers admit to texting while driving at least once in the last 30 days. The popularity of texting is unquestionable. About two-thirds of Texas teenagers surveyed said they have talked on a cell phone while driving in the past six months, according to the state Transportation Institute. More than half said they had read or sent text messages while driving. A 2007 study said cell phone use was among the primary causes of fatal car crashes among teens. According to CTIA, the number of monthly texting messages reached 110 billion at the end of 2008, a more than 11-fold increase in three years. AAA is asking drivers to go to its website at www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/headsup.cfm to learn more about its efforts to stop driving while texting.
The Montes Law Group, P.C. is a law firm with offices in Irving and Dallas Texas. We are experienced and qualified attorneys who dedicate our practice to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of car accidents and other cases where people are severely injured through the negligence and reckless conduct of others.