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Connecticut Medical Board Lashes Out Against Official's Comments

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 October 2004, 18:00 CDT

Oct. 20--Doctors on the state medical board responsible for disciplining physicians lashed out Tuesday against a top health department official who said publicly that the board fails to protect patients from dangerously incompetent doctors.

Dr. Dennis G. O'Neill, chairman of the Connecticut Medical Examining Board, argued that Department of Public Health officials -- who investigate doctors and bring cases before the board for discipline -- are responsible for allowing problem doctors to continue practicing.

Another board member said Deputy Health Commissioner Norma Gyle, who criticized the board earlier this month, should be "terminated."

Frustration between the doctor-dominated medical board and health department regulators rose to a boil after the board voted to allow a Norwalk plastic surgeon to continue performing surgery in his office after anesthesia complications during a tummy tuck left a 31-year-old woman in a permanent coma.

After the decision, Gyle called the system of "doctors protecting doctors" a public health threat and said it was time to consider abolishing the board and finding a new way to judge such cases.

At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the board fired back. Calling Gyle's comments "unnecessarily negative and sadly inaccurate," O'Neill accused her of speaking from ignorance because she had not attended the hearing in the case of the plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Herman, and did not understand the evidence.

"I was aghast that the deputy commissioner could be so ignorant," said Dr. C. Steven Wolf, another board member. "Frankly, I think she should be terminated for such unprofessional conduct."

Gyle did not attend Tuesday's board meeting and did not respond to several messages left with her office requesting comment.

Dr. J. Robert Galvin, the state public health commissioner, also did not respond to requests for comment.

Department spokesman William Gerrish said the issues Gyle raised "express our commitment to ensuring that Connecticut patients benefit from a fair, equitable and transparent regulatory system."

At Tuesday's meeting, O'Neill pointed out that the board had reprimanded Herman and fined him $10,000. The board also put Herman's license on probation until his office practices could be certified by a national organization of outpatient surgical centers. Earlier this month, Gyle described that organization as one doctors pay to tell them everything is all right.

The Herman case clearly is still a sore subject between the medical board and the health department. At the previous board meeting, on Sept. 21, a health department lawyer pleaded with the board to revoke Herman's license, arguing that the doctor's poor judgment meant that his office had been an "accident waiting to happen" for years.

Among the violations state investigators found was that Herman had been relying on an uncertified, 79-year-old nurse to administer powerful anesthesia. During questioning at a hearing two months after the procedure that left the patient comatose, the nurse appeared confused about the powerful, potentially lethal sedatives she had used and twice said they posed no risk.

The medical board's members astonished health department officials when they said they were powerless to punish Herman for any broad lapses of judgment because the statement of charges filed by the health department dealt only with technical violations of certification requirements.

At Tuesday's meeting, the board also decided not to take serious license action against a Manchester ophthalmologist, Dr. Steve Tu, who failed to do a test needed to diagnose a torn retina on an 81-year-old patient. A second doctor found the torn retina five days later, after the patient's nephew suggested that the patient seek a second opinion.

Wolf said that he believed the tear existed when Tu examined the patient, but because the health department couldn't prove it a lesser punishment was appropriate. Wolf also said Tu's actions caused no harm to the patient. He added that Tu's decision not to perform the time-consuming test was understandable, given the pressure doctors are under to move patients along quickly.

Because Tu has been fined but not reprimanded or placed on probation, his case will not be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a repository of malpractice and physician disciplinary information that hospitals are required by law to check before hiring a doctor.

At Tuesday's hearing, Tu's attorney said the ophthalmologist is no longer working in Connecticut.

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Source: The Hartford Courant, Connecticut

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