Public Citizen's Health Research Group: Questionable Doctors: District of Columbia

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

1999 serious action rate: 2.18/1000 doctors
1999 ranking: 41st

In the District of Columbia, there were disciplinary actions reported against 260 doctors including 2 who were disciplined for substance abuse, 2 for misprescribing or overprescribing drugs, 1 for sexual abuse of or sexual misconduct with a patient, 3 for substandard care, incompetence or negligence and 8 who were convicted of a crime.

This web site provides aggregate national and state data on doctor discipline. Names of those doctors and their offenses are NOT included on the site. Web sites with such information need to be frequently updated and we cannot do this because of limited staff and resources available to continually monitor the information that we receive from the 51 MD and 14 DO licensing boards and the federal government. This website does provide direct links to the web sites of those boards that have information available on the internet.

Detailed information on specific doctors who have been disciplined is included in the book which can be purchased in regional editions for $20. The book includes disciplinary actions taken against doctors from 1990 through December 1999.

The District of Columbia Commission on Healing Arts sent lists of disciplinary actions for 1990 through 1999. The more recent reports include the physician's name, degree, the type of action taken, and a description of the offense. In some cases, we also received a copy of the physician's consent order which includes the physician's name, degree, license number, type and date of action and reason the action was taken, and some information on modifications or terminations of board orders and court decisions affecting board actions.

The actions listed include a substantial number of doctors who did not renew their licenses on time and practiced while the license was expired. Although this does not necessarily reflect negatively on a physician's ability to practice medicine, since a fine was imposed and technically the physicians were practicing while they had no license, the information was included in this listing.

The information provided covers disciplinary actions taken against allopathic physicians (MDs) only.

Besides disciplinary actions taken by the State Medical Board, this listing also includes actions taken by the Medicare/Medicaid programs, the FDA, and the DEA against physicians located in the District of Columbia. Disciplinary actions taken by other states against physicians located in the District of Columbia or that match a physician disciplined by the District of Columbia are also included.

BS00024A.gif (1893 bytes) DC Board Internet address: http://www.dchealth.com/lra
This state has a web site which we have graded B on a scale of A (best) to X (worst) as part of our February 2000 Survey of Doctor Disciplinary Information on State Medical Board Web Sites. This grade is a measure of the completeness of the information on disciplined doctors. Those state licensing boards with web sites make independent choices about the type of information to be included on their site and how often it is updated.

According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, the District of Columbia reported 9 serious disciplinary actions against physicians in 1999. Compared to the 4,121 MDs in the city, the District of Columbia had a serious disciplinary action rate of 2.18 serious actions per 1,000 MDs and ranked 41st on that list (see Table A).

The tables below summarize the data Public Citizen received from the District of Columbia.

Table 1. Disciplinary Actions Against MDs 1990 through 1999
Action	Number	Percent
Revocation	14	4.8%
Surrender	2	0.7%
Suspension	6	2.0%
Probation	24	8.2%
Practice Restriction	4	1.4%
Action Taken Against Controlled Substance License	0	0.0%
Other Actions	244	83.0%
Total Actions	294	100.0%

* This table lists only the two most serious disciplinary actions taken against a physician.
** Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

Table 2. Offenses for which MDs were Disciplined 1990 through 1999*
Offense	Number	Percent
Criminal Conviction	8	3.1%
Sexual Abuse of or Sexual Misconduct with a Patient	1	0.4%
Substandard Care, Incompetence or Negligence	3	1.2%
Misprescribing or Overprescribing Drugs	2	0.8%
Substance Abuse	2	0.8%
Disciplinary Action Taken Against License by Another State or Agency	40	15.7%
Other Offenses	199	78.0%
Total Records With Offense Listed	255	100.0%

* Includes only those actions for which an offense was listed and for which we had a corresponding term in our database.

Table 3. Disciplinary Actions Taken for Criminal Conviction
Action	Number	Percent
Revocation	2	20.0%
Probation	3	30.0%
Fine	1	10.0%
Other Actions	4	40.0%
Total Actions	10	100.0%

If you feel that your doctor has not given you proper medical care or has mistreated you in any way--whether or not he or she is listed in this report--it is important that you let your state medical board know. Even if they do not immediately act on your complaint, it is important that the information be recorded in their files because it is possible that other people may have filed or will file complaints about the same doctor. Send a brief written description of what occurred to the addresses below or call the phone numbers listed for more information on how to file a complaint.

Address
District of Columbia Board of Medicine
Commission on Healing Arts
James Granger, Jr., Executive Director
614 H Street N.W., Room 108
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 727-5365
Internet address: http://www.dchealth.com/lra/news.htm