Arizona legislator protects bad doctors and throws out reporters who ask why
So, you’re wondering if that doctor you’re about to go see has shown up to work drunk. Or maybe he removed a woman’s ovaries without asking or accidentally operated on the wrong knee.
You know, little things like that.
Well, sorry, Arizona.
You’re out of luck. The state provides cover for bad doctors, and it appears a key legislator wants to keep it that way.
Rep. Laurin Hendrix refuses even to hear to a bill that would make it easier for the public to find out about a doctor’s full disciplinary record.
Hendrix tells reporter to 'stop bothering me'
When pressed about why, the Gilbert Republican on Wednesday ordered Arizona Republic reporter Andrew Ford out of a House hearing room. Just flat kicked him out, threatening to call security if he didn’t beat feet out of there.
“Stop bothering me,” commanded Hendrix, who chairs the House Regulatory Affairs Committee. “Now. Leave.”
Someone should tell Rep. Hendrix that he sits in the Legislature, not on a throne.
Ford is the investigative reporter who exposed the state law that requires the Arizona Medical Board to hide records that reveal misconduct by doctors.State law only allows disciplinary records from the last five years to be publicly posted on the board’s online profiles of physicians. Meanwhile, advisory letters — the most common way for dealing with physician misconduct — aren’t posted at all, as the board doesn’t consider such letters a form of discipline.
'Advisory letters' on doctors are disturbing
They are public records, though. If you know that such letters to your doctor exist — and I don’t know why you would — you can request them in writing.
Ford went through some of those advisory letters and found some eye-popping problems that apparently didn’t rise to the level of discipline.
Among them: doctors written up for being drunk at work or while on-call, for removing a patient’s ovaries without her consent, for operating on the wrong knee, for inadequate removal of a brain tumor.
If you needed a tumor removed, wouldn’t you want to know if the doctor standing over you with a bone saw had received an “advisory letter” for inadequate removal of some poor guy’s brain tumor?House Bill 2312 is designed to let you know.
Why should bad doctors get a pass?
It would require both disciplinary actions and advisory letters to be posted on the medical board’s website for 25 years.
Maybe there’s a good reason not to pass HB 2312. I don’t know. Hendrix didn’t return my call to ask him why he won’t hear the bill.
Maybe he’s ignoring it because it’s sponsored by a Democrat, Rep. Patricia Contreras of Phoenix, though that seems a petty reason to dismiss a bill aimed at increasing transparency and protecting the public.
Still, there are highly partisan legislators who absolutely are that petty.
Are you one of them, Rep. Hendrix?
I’d drop by and ask, but I don’t relish the prospect by being frog-marched out of a hearing room.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Bad doctors get a pass in Arizona, and bill to stop them is blocked
