Medical Board of California

The state medical board has investigated a mounting number of people posing as doctors and offering risky treatments, including a San Francisco man who performed liposuction while smoking a cigar and a San Diego woman who sickened a patient with lengthy IV infusion treatments.

The Medical Board of California reported that its unit that investigates lay people posing as medical professionals, called Operation Safe Medicine, sent 61 cases to prosecutors for review for the fiscal year ending in June, up from 31 cases the year before.

The numbers were released Friday in the Sunset Review Report, a comprehensive review of medical board operations over recent years. The report, which is issued when the board’s charter is set to be renewed by lawmakers, calls for more staff to launch a Northern California unit in addition to the existing six-person Southern California Operation Safe Medicine team.

“The Board believes that the OSM Unit is imperative in order to protect the public from the actions of unlicensed practitioners,” Jennifer Simoes, the medical board's chief of legislation, said in a statement. “OSM staff has the specialized training and expertise necessary to address the continued proliferation of unlicensed cases.”

In one case, an Encinitas woman, Kathleen Ann Helms, represented herself as a doctor of naturopathy at an office called BrightHouse Wellness.

In a complaint filed with the Medical Board of California, a consumer advocacy group is claiming that a physician's use of a massage machine for weight loss is endangering patients.

Public Citizen has alleged that Dr. Gail Altschuler, a California physician who runs a Novato weight loss center, and other doctors who use and promote a medical device called the LipoTron for fat reduction are demonstrating a “reckless disregard for the health and welfare of patients."

The device manufacturer, Fullerton-based RevecoMED, is registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make the low-risk therapeutic massager known as the LipoTron. But it has not been approved or cleared by the FDA for weight loss-related uses, according to a search for RevecoMED and the device on FDA databases. The FDA declined to respond to questions about the LipoTron, including whether the device is undergoing a pre-market review or whether RevecoMED is seeking clearance from the agency.

Public Citizen’s complaint letter [PDF] to the state medical board, filed Aug. 3, is part of an effort by consumer advocates to prevent the use of the LipoTron for weight loss until it undergoes additional regulatory scrutiny.

“It is concerning to us when a device not approved or cleared by the FDA is being used for a multitude of uses for which the safety and efficacy is not established,” said Dr. Michael Carome, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

A costly new method of prosecuting questionable doctors has not resulted in better enforcement, according to a management consultant hired by the state.

The report will be presented this week and already has generated strong opposition.

Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office issued a vehement response to the report [PDF], criticizing the methodology and offering conclusions that are the exact opposite of the consultant’s report.

The medical board report [PDF] examined the effect of a 2006 change in the way the medical board conducts its enforcement actions. The board's enforcement branch investigates and reprimands physicians who breach professional standards or harm patients.

The new enforcement method is referred to as “vertical enforcement” and means that attorneys now have greater involvement in every step of the investigation process.

The result has been that “costs for legal services provided by the Attorney General escalated rapidly while … the number of cases referred for investigation, the number of completed investigations referred for prosecution and … the number of disciplinary actions all declined,” the medical board report says.

The report by management consultant Benjamin Frank zeroed in on costs that escalated most dramatically in the Los Angeles enforcement office.