Medical board executive director to resign

Update: The California Medical Board released a statement today about the departure of its executive director, Barbara Johnston:

After achieving many of her goals, including implementing the Telemedicine pilot in partnership with the UC Davis Health system and integrating technological upgrades at the Board, Ms. Johnston accepted a senior position in the private sector in her primary area of expertise, health information technology.

An intriguing news flash, not announced as such, landed in my inbox this morning: The executive director of the California Medical Board is scheduled to resign in a matter of weeks.

The announcement comes as item four on an agenda for a Jan. 28 medical board meeting.  I made a quick call to the board, but it’s furlough Friday. No one is in the office.

Hopefully an explanation is forthcoming.

In the meantime, here’s a round-up of recent news that may shed some light:

The nursing board has come under incredible scrutiny by ProPublica’s dynamic and Pulitzer-winning reporters, Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Their reporting exposed that the California nursing board takes more than three years to investigate and discipline errant nurses. Their strong reporting resulted in the resignation of the nursing board's director, Ruth Ann Terry, and a strong and rapid response by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The medical board may not be insulated from similar criticism if you consider one case that I wrote about in June of 2006 – more than three years ago – for the Sacramento Bee (with Carrie Peyton Dahlberg):

A Carmichael plastic surgeon was being held on sex and weapons charges Wednesday after police found an armor-penetrating rocket launcher, machine guns and dozens of other weapons in his sprawling ranch home. Dr. Scott Takasugi, known by neighbors for his lavish Halloween parties, dapper clothes and luxury car collection, was being investigated for sexual exploitation of patients when the cache was found.

In that case, more than three years passed before the medical board announced in October 2009 that Takasugi was giving up his medical license.

Another clue seems to lie on page five of a recent newsletter from the board. Check it out:

The Medical Board is undergoing an independent, comprehensive review of its organization. Generally, when such reviews or audits are performed, they are at the request of the Legislature or governor. This review, however, is at the request of the members of the medical board.

That report is expected to be delivered to board members by the September meeting and reported publicly in October.

Finally, the board has made headlines in the Orange County Register and beyond for a case of an Anaheim doctor losing his license in 2002 after the death of a newborn, only to stand see his license reinstated. He was accused in recent weeks of causing the death of a patient during an abortion. More on that case from California Watch and a strong call for accountability from William Heisel, a former investigative reporter who worked on that story nearly a decade ago.

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Anonymous's picture
You make it sound like something bad happened. She is taking a promotion to another job. At least the LATimes got it right.
Anonymous's picture
Something BAD did happen. Continue reading the LA times and look for the article entitled, "Medical Board admits error in monitoring".
concernedamericans's picture
California Medical Board (MBC) has a massive budgets of Millions of Dollars but this budget is spent to increase the cost of Healthcare delivery and worsen the quality of Healthcare delivery to the PEOPLE. An urgent reform of the Medical Board of California can redirect these funds to benefit the public, healthcare and medical practice in our country and eventually solving the Healthcare Crisis dilemma our country is facing. It is questioned as to how the massive budget of the Medical Board of California is being spent. Many have suggested that the Medical Board of California is not doing what it was initially established to do and others are even accusing the members of this organization of all types of unethical or even illegal activities. What is clear is that any person can complain to the California Medical Board even without a legitimate reason. Any complaint is enough to start an investigation by the Medical Board of California. Once an investigation is started however, very often the physician ends up getting some kind of probation/letter of reprimand or other disciplinary action filed against their license. The question is how much does it cost the Medical Board of California to conduct an investigation? Most likely hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on each investigation. Is there sufficient data to suggest that this huge expense is justified? Is there a direct relationship with the activities of the Medical Board of California and improvement of the standard of Medical Practice. Many suggest that actually the opposite is true. It is suggested that the Medical Board of California has resulted in a massive increase in the cost of healthcare delivery and is decreasing the availability of healthcare to the people. Tens of hospitals have gone bankrupt and hundreds of physicians have stopped practicing their specialities. this has resulted in a worsened healthcare crisis whiz continues to hurt PEOPLE every day. In addition the field of medicine is a relatively lucrative business and is extremely competitive. Frequently business managers try to employ aggressive and even unfair business practices such as referring other physicians to the CMB for investigation knowing that an investigation by the CMB will result in loss of time, money and resources for their competitors. Attorneys also utilize the threat of investigation by the California Medical Board as a leverage to settle baseless malpractice cases in their own benefit. This will obviously increase the cost of healthcare delivery to the PEOPLE and decrease its availability hence worsening the healthcare crisis we are all suffering from as a nation. If this is true; should Medical Board of California's existence be permitted to continue? Should Medical Board of California be allowed to cost our PEOPLE Millions of Dollars per year? Since the CMB utilizes Administrative Basis of Evaluating Complaints there are very minimal and frequently vague and rarely objective guidelines to evaluate the conduct of the physicians. These guideline are often interpreted subjectively. Further, there are clear political ongoing issues between rival specialties. The EXPERT physicians that are hired by the Medical Board of California are usually of one particular specialty and depending on which specialist's files they review, there is a great deal of BIASED judgment that they are able to exert. As expert witnesses they are considered immune by the law. This unfortunate situation has continued for years and now has become a simple means of unfair-competition frequently being used by certain specialties against others. If this is true; should the PEOPLE finance such political battles and self serving activities? Medical Board of California utilizes a hybrid of Administrative Law and Criminal Law to POLICE AND DISCIPLINE THE PHYSICIANS. To complicate the issues even more, unfortunately there are many limitations that are put in place by administrative-law on the individual being investigated. For example in criminal law a suspect has the right to an attorney and if he/she cannot afford one; one will be assigned to him/her by the State at no charge to the suspect. Further a suspect is considered innocent until proven guilty in a criminal case. In administrative law such guidelines do not exist. This results in frequent accusations that end up in disciplinary action despite the professionals' innocence. Obviously; if a physician is forced to hire and pay for his/her own legal defense against the ever-increasing threat of Medical Board of California; this huge expense has to be passed on to the PEOPLE who pay for the physician's services. It is needless to describe how stressful and anxiety provoking the experience of investigation by the California Medical Board and the risk of loss of license and the ability to earn a living is for a physician. The ongoing liabilities; frustration with difficult work experiences; poor quality of life; decreasing income and many other negative experiences that physicians have been suffering from has resulted in tremendous dissatisfaction and anxiety for healthcare professionals. The increasing suicide rate of physicians; low life expectancy rate; poor quality of family life further make the healthcare field less attractive for young students. Many healthcare professionals are leaving the field or are encouraging their youngsters to enter other fields outside of healthcare and as a result we are facing terrible physician shortages throughout the United States. If the California Medical Board and other agencies that affect the practice of medicine in our country fail to reform their actions, the frightening physician shortages that threaten our country is expected to worsen and will make the current healthcare crisis even worse. If these allegations are true; doesn't it make sense that California Medical Board is most likely contributing to the lack of availability of affordable healthcare for the PEOPLE? The very frightening and sad realities of Healthcare Crisis which are mostly caused by the Medical Board of California can be confirmed by an online search. We encourage ALL PEOPLE to undertake the responsibility of researching the Negative IMPACTS OF THE MEDICAL BOARD OF CALIFORNIA ON HEALTHCARE DELIVERY AND ON PEOPLE and take decisive action in reforming the Medical Board of California as soon as possible.
jameslee's picture
I hate that he is resigning. He has done some amazing work that needs to be recognized. IT will be very hard to replace. Watkins Products
vesaire's picture
You make it film seyret sound film izle like something bad indirmeden film izle happened. She is taking sinema izle a promotion to another job. At least the LATimes got it right.

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