• Government
• Profession
• Business
• Opinion
• Health

• Health reform
• H1N1
• P4P
• EMRs
• Medicare
• Liability
• AMA House
• » More

• Book Excerpt
• Business Pitch
• Meetings
• » More

• Contract Language
• Ethics Forum
• In the Courts
• Practice Management
• Technically Speaking
• » More

• Issue dates
• Regions
• Health plans
• Sections
• News briefs
• Columns
• Editorials
• Letters
• Writers
• Other years

• Search tips
• E-mail alert
• Radio
• RSS
• Mobile
• Subscribe
• Institutions
• Staff directory
• Advertising
• Permissions
• Reprints
• News media
• Site guide
• Useful links
• About
• Premium
• Contact

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, amednews staff. July 9, 2007.

• PRINT|
• E-MAIL|
• RESPOND|
• REPRINTS|
• SHARE

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."

But some medical board leaders said the rankings are not an accurate reflection of boards' effectiveness.

"To rank states solely on disciplinary actions is a misuse of the data," said James Thompson, MD, president and CEO of the FSMB. "There is such wide variability from state to state as to how they function and in their capability of disciplining physicians that to compare one state to another really serves no purpose."

Dr. Thompson said states vary in board funding and staffing, have different levels of autonomy and differ in legal standards for disciplining doctors. He agreed with Public Citizen that boards need adequate funding and staffing to do their job.

"Public Citizen does a good service by highlighting the fact that state medical boards need more resources and greater autonomy and should be without undue influence from politics or professional organizations," he said.

Back to top