Policing State’s Doctors

If a South Carolina doctor has a record of criminal drug abuse or of murdering patients, potential future victims should have access to that information. State regulators need to press ahead with a proposal to require criminal background checks for new physicians and current doctors facing disciplinary action.

The issue came to the forefront recently with the case of Dr. James M. Shortt, an alternative medicine practitioner from West Columbia. Shortt is being investigated regarding the deaths of two of his patients earlier this year.

A Minnesota woman, Katherine Bibeau, died in March after Shortt infused her with hydrogen peroxide to treat her multiple sclerosis. The coroner in that case ruled her death a homicide.

Now Smartt also is under investigation regarding the death of Michael Bate, a 66-year-old retired engineer, who died after being treated by Smartt for prostate cancer. Bate also was injected several times with hydrogen peroxide, and also received testosterone, which experts say stimulated cancer in the prostate and hastened Bate’s death.

For now, however, Smartt is free to practice medicine. The state medical board hopes to suspend his license, but won’t do so until it makes a final ruling.

In the future, however, patients might at least know if their doctors have criminal histories, and some prospective doctors might not be licensed at all if they have committed serious crimes. The state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation has asked the board to submit a proposal to the Legislature by January to require background checks of physicians.

It is uncertain whether a background check would have prevented the deaths of Dr. Smartt’s patients. But it might prevent doctors with legal problems in other states from moving to South Carolina to practice. And it might prevent those with serious drug problems or a history of violent crime from becoming doctors in the first place.

Some contend that too much secrecy surrounds physician disciplinary hearings. The the Island Packet of Hilton Head filed a lawsuit last month asking the state Supreme Court to unseal documents about disciplinary actions against a doctor accused substance abuse.

That, however, is a separate issue from background checks. We think the public has a right to know after a doctor has been disciplined, particularly when criminal charges are involved. But we also are aware that doctors’ reputations can be destroyed by false or malicious charges.

Ultimately, though, people should be protected as much as possible from practitioners such as Smartt, who often troll for unsuspecting patients over the Internet. That’s how Bate, an engineer with two master’s degrees, found Dr. Smartt.

A criminal background check is the minimum prospective doctors should be subjected to before receiving a license to practice.