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Healthcare practitioners with drug problems hidden by the system

Posted on March 17, 2008October 24, 2024 by Dissent

Is your medical privacy dependent, in part, on whether you are a healthcare professional? John Dorschner and Patrick Danner write in the Miami Herald:

In August 2006, the former wife of a Broward psychologist sent a letter to state authorities saying she had visited his home ‘and saw cocaine paraphernalia, an empty bottle of Oxycontin and a small Ziploc bag . . . with `whitish-beigy’ colored small rocks,” according to a court document.

That event started an investigation and later a lawsuit against ”John Doe, Ph.D.” The psychologist’s name has not been revealed. The Department of Health won’t say if he’s still practicing. ”Everything about this case is confidential,” says spokeswoman Eulinda Jackson.

The case is another example of how far state regulators will go to protect healthcare professionals.

”Doctors like to protect other doctors,” says Sidney M. Wolfe, a physician with the Washington-based Public Citizen consumer group which has published a series of studies on how lax regulatory groups are in disciplining healthcare professionals.

In the case of the unknown psychologist confidentiality is key in order to get professionals to seek help, says Raymond Pomm, head of the group that handles the impaired physicians’ program. “If we don’t protect them, they won’t come knocking on the door.”

But court records reveal John Doe, Ph.D. refused to participate. Pomm’s program, Professional Resource Network, asked him to respond to his ex-wife’s allegations. He didn’t. In October 2006, PRN sent him a certified letter. He didn’t respond. Over the next year, PRN kept repeating the request.

Finally, in November, the Department of Health sued ”John Doe Ph.D” in Broward Circuit Court to compel him to submit to a mental and physical test. Wherever his real name appeared in court documents, it was blacked out. The psychologist has yet to respond.

Full story – Miami Herald

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