Any doctor who has committed murder should have to tell the state medical board. So should physicians convicted of other violent acts, regardless of whether the crimes took place in a medical setting.
Right now in Minnesota, they don't have to.
That glaring loophole in state law, along with others identified in the News Tribune's "First, Do No Harm" series, will be on the agenda when the Legislature convenes next month, lawmakers told the newspaper's editorial board in interviews this week.
"A lot of this deserves looking at," said Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, the incoming chairman of the Health, Housing and Family Security Committee.
"You've certainly raised enough issues that deserve attention," he said, add-ing that members of his committee will meet in January to discuss them.
ADVERTISEMENT
On the other side of the aisle, nascent House Deputy Minority Leader Tom Emmer, R-Delano, also said that the lapses highlighted in the series would be addressed during the next term.
"Absolutely," he said.
"There should be a place, whether it's online or in some other accessible form, where you and I can shop for our doctors," he said. "I think we have to have some more transparency."
The six-day series included the story of a Minnesota physician who stabbed her son to death in California but received only a suspended license by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, which made no mention of the murder in her public files.
In contrast, the California board revoked her license permanently and posted details of the crime on its Web site.
Despite a requirement that doctors self-report criminal convictions, Minnesota laws governing the medical board do not address crimes that take place outside of a medical setting, with the exception of sexual assaults.
The series also detailed the failure of the licensing board to keep track of practitioners who move, retire or die, and a lack of information-sharing with the medical boards of other states.
The online posting of malpractice information -- which is publicly available but difficult for consumers to access -- also was suggested in the series.
ADVERTISEMENT
"You want to know if your doctor has been sued," Marty said. "When something's publicly available, it should be as easy as possible to find."
Health Committee member Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon of Duluth, who is a psychologist at St. Luke's hospital, said the effort to abate medical mistakes should not turn into a fault-finding mission.
"There are a lot of people involved," she said of mistakes that happen in hospitals. "It's hard to fix blame. We're trying to encourage people to report."
The series addressed similar concerns, calling for a national definition of medical mistakes that is embraced by all states and understood by all reporting institutions.
Sen.-elect Tony Lourey of Kerrick, a DFL colleague and committee member with Marty and Prettner Solon, agreed.
"We really need to work on uniformity within the state and nationally," he said.
On the federal level, U.S. Sen.-elect Amy Klobuchar told the News Tribune's editorial board that improving patients' medical records would help decrease mistakes.
Shown the public files from the Minnesota and California medical boards on the murder case, she said: "Unbelievable. All right. I'll look into this."
