Over the weekend, an anonymous reader of this blog tipped me off to an important investigative piece published in the Los Angeles Times, in collaboration with ProPublica, ” an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.” To many readers, the following article might have been shocking:
Dozens of registered nurses convicted of crimes, including sex offenses and attempted murder, have remained fully licensed to practice in California for years before the state nursing board acted against them, a Times investigation found.
The newspaper, in a joint effort with the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica, found more than 115 recent cases in which the state didn’t seek to pull or restrict licenses until nurses racked up three or more criminal convictions. Twenty-four nurses had at least five.
In some cases, nurses with felony records continue to have spotless licenses — even while serving time behind bars.
Here’s a partial listing of some of the individuals they encountered still in good standing with the Nursing Review Board in California:
Among the cases in which the board acted belatedly or not at all:
* An Orange County man continued to renew his nursing license for years even after he was imprisoned for attempted murder.
* A Redding nurse was convicted 14 separate times from 1996 — a year after she was licensed — through 2006 on charges including several instances of driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license and drug possession.
* A San Pedro man amassed convictions for receiving stolen property, as well as possession of cocaine and burglary tools, before the board placed him on probation. He subsequently was arrested two more times, for possessing cocaine and a pipe to smoke it.
In response, the board extended his probation.
There’s more, but you probably get the picture. The article is easily accessible at both the LA Times link given above and at this URL for ProPublica.
In the article, btw, an “expert” on California Licensing Boards says she’s “blown away” by the findings in this article.
Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could be that surprised by this – in California or any other state. In California, for example, many medical professionals participated in the alleged attempt to rush Ruben Navarro’s death in a botched organ harvesting attempt. One transplant physician was the subject of criminal charges, but the other nurses and doctors in the room were exonerated by their respective review boards.
In Oregon, after a series of embarrassing investigative articles, a governor’s inquiry led to the resignation of the top two members of the Nursing Review Board in that state. The Governor’s investigation found that the board did “not protect the public as effectively as it protects a participant’s license to practice.”
So it’s not that surprising to hear of something like this coming from California. I’d be willing to guess that there are similar stories waiting to be written in many states by reporters willing to follow in the footsteps of the journalists in this latest story of professional review boards acting as a smokescreen for a laissez faire reality in the world of medical practice. –Stephen Drake