Minnesota Medical Board Sanctions Retired Physician
I've been writing often here on Substack about serious problems with state medical boards and their many actions against physicians which have no real link to patient safety. Insuring patient safety is the only legitimate reason for the existence of state medical boards.
At the risk of repeating myself too many times, as I wrote last week, Megan Ranney and Lawrence Gostin have cautioned state medical boards to reign in their attempts to prevent physicians from making medical decisions:
But sanctions should be reserved for the clearest and most egregious cases. We live in a free society, where First Amendment freedoms are a bedrock constitutional principle. We can protect patients and incentivize quality health information while remaining faithful to America’s values and constitutional traditions.
Yes, there are legitimate sanctions against physicians. But much of what medical boards do remains secret, and at least in my situation, have been politically motivated. I suspect many of these kinds of medical board actions never get reported by journalists.
When you are actively practicing medicine, you dare not openly criticize medical board decisions against you because you open yourself to the possibly of loosing your license. You may even have been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you are an independent physician without corporate medical backing, you are particularly vulnerable. The primary way questionable state medical board decisions can come to light is when there becomes a public attempt to defend physicians. One example is Richard Jaffee's defense of Dr. Richard Eggleston against the Washington state medical board's charge of "moral turpitude.” Dr. Eggleston's crime? Stating that the Covid shots would provide only temporary benefits, among other problems with the vaccinations.
As Jaffe says:
This case seemed like a no-brainer. Who thinks that the government can stop people from expressing their views about public health in public? Well the Medical Commission for one, based on the Federation of State Medical Board's couple paragraph press release back in July 2021, being another, and being the instigator of the Commission's censorship program.
Did you catch the fact that the Federation of State Medical Boards, (FSMB) published a 12-page report documenting why it is so important to sanction physicians for misinformation, in this case alternative views about the Covid vaccinations?
As I wrote last week, misinformation is a label, not a fact. So for the FSMB to pontificate about knowing the difference between misinformation and fact reflects an arrogance and an amazing inability to understand what a fact is or is not.
There are many examples of medical boards trying to censor physician opinion about Covid vaccinations. The story of Alex Berensen and Pierre Kory are just two.
But back to my story about the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice (MNBMP). I stopped practicing medicine in February of 2022. My Minnesota license was up for renewal in February of 2022. I did not renew the license because I was no longer going to be practicing. A short time later, the North Dakota Board of Medical Practice (NDBOMP) began investigating me because the CEO of the hospital, the day after I left the hospital employment, had solicited complaints from hospital employees who knew they would be fired if they didn't provide the requested documents. Even though I was not practicing, NDBOMP required I sign an agreement to not practice during the investigation. As required by law, in March of 2022, I had notified the MNBMP that the North Dakota board had received a complaint against me. After a year’s investigation, in January of 2023, NDBOMP granted me an emeritus license in good standing.
In April of 2024, over a year after my settlement with NDBOMP, Jamal Zayed, the Minnesota Assistant Attorney General, filed a MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT OF COMPLAINT REVIEW COMMITTEE’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY DISPOSITION. This document recommended MNBMP take disciplinary action against me. The allegation was that I had violated the Medical Practice Act and therefore MNBMP should sanction me. Even though I hadn’t been practicing for over two years, no patients had been harmed, and I had not paid to renew my Minnesota medical license since February of 2021.
I did point out to Zayed that I did not renew my Minnesota license after February of 2021. His response was that a Minnesota license is considered active until the renewal fee had gone unpaid for two years, so I was still in violation of their Medical Practices Act. Of course, by that time I had already passed the two years without renewing my Minnesota license, but this seemed to escape his notice. Plus, the Medical Practices Act says in Licensure Requirements 147F.07, Subdivison 7, paragraph 13(b):
(b) …All licensees are required to pay the full fee upon license renewal.
I could find no reference in the Minnesota Medical Practice Act stating that a license remains active even if the renewal fee remains unpaid.
So, why was Jamal Zayed so tenacious in sanctioning me for not practicing without a license more than two years after I was no longer practicing medicine and I had not renewed my Minnesota license? I strongly suspect that Zayed wanted some additional notches in his gun belt to up his credibility with the Minnesota Attorney General's Office. His motion had nothing to do with patient safety.
A final coda. Several physicians on MNBMP refused to sign the order. The MNBMP board members were informed by the attorney present at my appearance before MNBMP that board members had only two choices in response to the action against me before them. The members could choose "guilty" or "abstain." They could not indicate that they disagreed with the action. So in effect, even if most members would vote against the action, their only choice was “abstain.” This means a sanction will be approved with one vote of guilty from a board member.
If you've made it this far, I thank you. I have many more stories if readers are interested. The point I have been making about medical boards in my articles here on Substack is that medical boards are highly political, whether it's taking out the competition or trying to get a few more notches in a gun belt. In my opinion, medical boards should be required to demonstrate how a physician’s actions actually harm patients. That was the original letter of the law. Putting labels on imagined crimes without providing any real facts does not protect patients. Malcolm Sparrow in his book License to Steal says that any real audit of a physician's care requires that the patients involved be interviewed.
The real crime here is the extraordinary expense to the state of Minnesota generated by Zayed with this useless action which served absolutely no legitimate purpose in protecting patients from harm because there was no real harm.
My goal in telling my stories of dealing with medical boards is to encourage journalists to investigate what really goes on behind closed doors with state medical boards.
P.S.: When I support a writer, I personally prefer donations to subscriptions. Subtack does not offer the donation option for writers. At my LindemannMD site, there is a donation option for the Safe Pregnancies Foundation in the sidebar widgets.