Virginia gears up for Internet database on state's doctors

The state's road to posting physician profile information on the Web has been a rocky one.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. May 28, 2001.

Sometime this summer, Virginia will join several other states in posting data about its physicians on the Internet. Disciplinary actions and malpractice claims will be among the information available to the public through the Web site.

Some of the state's 31,000 doctors have echoed concerns in other states about how patients will interpret malpractice details. But in Virginia, some physicians also have taken offense to a letter from the Virginia Board of Medicine, which is creating the database, telling them they may be subject to disciplinary action if they fail to provide the required material.

"I have mixed feelings about it," said Cynthia C. Romero, MD, a family physician in Virginia Beach. "I believe patients should have access to information about their doctor. However, with malpractice, that puts information into the patients' hands that may not be as appropriate. There are varying degrees of legal actions; some of it is justified, or they may be unsubstantiated."

William Harp, MD, the board's executive director, acknowledged that some doctors didn't like his letter mentioning disciplinary consequences. But he said, "I wrote that as a service to my colleagues so they would be able to comply. I can assure you there was no intention to threaten anybody." [...]