Scrutiny of rehab for addicted doctors grows

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Scrutiny of rehab for addicted doctors grows Botched procedures lead to

criticism of confidential treatment Marcus Wohlsen

Associated Press

Dec. 21, 2007 12:00 AM

 

SAN FRANCISCO - Troubling cases in which doctors were accused of botching

operations while undergoing treatment for drugs or alcohol have led to criticism

of rehab programs that allow thousands of U.S. physicians to keep their

addictions hidden from their patients.

 

Nearly all states have confidential rehab programs that let doctors continue

practicing as long as they stick with the treatment regimen. Nationwide, as many

as 8,000 doctors may be in such programs, by one estimate.

 

These arrangements largely escaped public scrutiny until last summer, when

California's medical board outraged physicians across the country by abolishing

its 27-year-old program. A review concluded that the system failed to protect

patients or help addicted doctors get better.

 

Opponents of such programs say the medical establishment uses confidential

treatment to protect dangerous physicians.

 

" Patients have no way to protect themselves from these doctors, " said Julie

Fellmeth, who heads the University of San Diego's Center for Public Interest Law

and led the opposition to California's so-called diversion program.

 

Most addiction specialists favor allowing doctors to continue practicing while

in confidential treatment, as does the American Medical Association.

 

Supporters of such programs say that cases in which patients are harmed by

doctors in treatment are extremely rare and would pale next to the havoc that

could result if physicians had no such option.

 

" If you don't have confidential participation, you don't get people into the

program, " said Sandra Bressler, a California Medical Association executive.

 

California's program ends June 30. If no alternative program is adopted, the

rules could revert back to the zero-tolerance policy in place before 1980, when

doctors who were found by the medical board to have drug or alcohol problems

were immediately stripped of their licenses.

 

No state has followed California's lead. But the president of California's

medical board, Dr. Richard Fantozzi, said that behind the scenes, regulators

nationwide share his ambivalence toward such programs.

 

" To hide something from consumers, something so blatant ... it's unconscionable

today, " Fantozzi said.

 

Between 10 and 15 percent of physicians nationwide will have a substance abuse

problem at some point in their lives, a rate similar to that of the general

population, according to widespread estimates.

 

An estimated 7,500 to 8,000 practicing doctors are probably in confidential

treatment, or about 1 percent of all physicians practicing in the United States,

said Dr. Greg Skipper, head of Alabama's program and a leader of a coming study

on the issue.

 

Opponents of such programs are unable to cite any documented cases in which

doctors who were confidentially undergoing treatment botched operations while

drunk or high. But they say the very secrecy of the programs makes it hard to

assess the risks.

 

Nevertheless, some doctors have been accused of harming patients while in

treatment.

 

In Montana, a patient accused a doctor enrolled in the state's treatment program

of not following up on her abnormal test results, delaying her cancer diagnosis

by more than a year. Montana revoked Dr. Robert Schure's license last year after

he flunked out of treatment six times since 1994, according to board documents.

The patient's suit was settled for an undisclosed sum.

 

A North Carolina surgeon enrolled in the state's program for alcoholism charged

patients for one type of gastric bypass and then performed a shortcut procedure

that led to serious complications, including stomach ulcers and vomiting,

according to patients and a medical board investigation.

 

It wasn't until Dr. Steven Olchowski lost his license in 2005, years after many

of the incidents occurred, that his participation in North Carolina's program

became known.

 

Opponents of California's program have focused on the case of Dr. Brian West, a

Long Beach plastic surgeon who has been accused of negligence by the state

medical board and is fighting to keep his license.

 

In 1999, West performed a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery on

Becky Anderson. The procedure left her with gaping, infected wounds that

wouldn't close and, ultimately, a lump the size of a melon caused by organs

spilling through an unhealed hole in her abdomen.

 

Weeks before performing his final, futile procedure on her, West was arrested

for a drunken-driving accident.

 

After his conviction, West entered the diversion program for alcoholism. A year

later he performed a tummy tuck on a 37-year-old woman that also healed poorly.

 

West ultimately flunked out of the treatment program after investigators

uncovered a pattern of relapses, binge drinking and doctored urine tests that

" demonstrate that he is a physician who has been long and chronically impaired

by alcohol, " according to a 2005 medical board complaint.

 

West's supporters say he has been made a scapegoat, asserting that he is not to

blame for his patients' complications and that the severity of his drinking

problem has been exaggerated by investigators.

 

" I have no information from any of my investigations that Dr. West has ever

cared for patients while under the influence of alcohol, " said his attorney,

Dominique Pollara.

 

West admitted no fault in settling Anderson's malpractice lawsuit for $250,000,

Pollara said. The tummy-tuck patient lost her malpractice case.

 

Without confidentiality, some say, addicted doctors will go underground and

continue to practice without getting any treatment at all.

 

Dr. Jason Giles, a Malibu physician, completed California's program in 2004

after five years in treatment for alcoholism and addiction to prescription

drugs.

 

" I was never intoxicated taking care of patients. It didn't get to that - but

would have if I didn't avail myself of that rope dropped from the helicopter, "

he said.

 

His experience in rehab was so transformative, he said, that he quit

anesthesiology and opened the drug treatment center he now runs.

 

Giles said allowing physicians to continue to practice while in rehabilitation

is crucial to the success of treatment.

 

" Working actually helps them get better, " he said.

 

Jim Conway, a Venice, Calif., drug and alcohol counselor, said that before

confidential treatment programs, doctors would do whatever they could to hide

their addiction for fear they would lose their licenses.

 

At a hospital where Conway worked, an obstetrician came to work and delivered a

baby while " dead drunk, " he said. In the process, the doctor severed the

newborn's spine.

 

" And that's how it will be if they just do a punitive approach, " Conway said.

 

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1221AddictedDoctors.html

 

 

 

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