Public Citizen issues annual medical board rankings

A new report said boards need to do a better job of protecting the public. Some say the study is flawed.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. July 9, 2007.

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization, has ranked Alaska as the best state medical board at disciplining doctors in the past three years and Mississippi as the worst.

The Washington, D.C.-based group released its rankings last month after calculating the rate of serious disciplinary actions, such as revocations and suspensions, per 1,000 physicians in each state from 2004 to 2006. It used state disciplinary actions, which were collected by the Federation of State Medical Boards, and physician population data.

The states with the highest disciplinary rates were Alaska (7.3 serious actions per 1,000 physicians), Kentucky (7.1), Wyoming (6.37), Ohio (6.01) and Oklahoma (5.54).

The states with the lowest disciplinary rates for the three-year period were Mississippi (1.41 serious actions per 1,000 physicians), South Carolina (1.45), Minnesota (1.45), South Dakota (1.52) and Nevada (1.68).

Boards took 2,916 serious actions in 2006, down 10.4% from 2005, the report said. The national average disciplinary rate was 3.18 serious actions per 1,000 physicians, down from 3.62 in 2005.

"Most states are not living up to their obligations to protect patients from doctors who are practicing medicine in a substandard manner and endangering the lives and health of their patients," Sidney Wolfe, MD, director of Public Citizen's health research group, said in a statement. "State legislatures must act to increase the amount of doctor discipline and patient protection. Without adequate oversight, many medical boards will continue to perform poorly."