Maryland’s Physician Discipline System Ranked 5th Worst in the U.S.

Today the Maryland Daily Record reports that the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen has rated Maryland’s physician discipline system as one of the worst in the country.

Public Citizen’s spokesman (who is also an M.D.) states that this “is troubling because it indicates many states are not living up to their obligations to protect patients from bad doctors.” Maryland is ranked 45th and has been one of the ten worst states for the past six rankings.

In rebuttal, Irving Pinder (Executive Director of the Maryland Board of Physicians) called Public Citizen’s findings flawed.

“I’ve always argued that Public Citizen’s statistics are very misleading because … they assume the pool of doctors is the same in every state,” Pinder said. “Maryland has some of the best doctors … in the country. If you need to go in for major surgery, would you want to be in Alaska or Maryland?”
Gee, Irv, I don’t know. Is taking out a kidney major surgery? Let me find out if Alaska lets doctors remove the wrong kidney, lie about it, and then keep practicing medicine. I’ll get back to you.