Trail of misery follows doctor

[unhappycamper]

Robert Whitney said he was a victim of hernia repair surgery performed by Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez. In March, a Fall River jury ordered the surgeon to pay Whitney and his estranged wife $652,000 for their ordeal. (Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)


Trail of misery follows doctor
By Scott Allen, Globe Staff | October 28, 2007

ATTLEBORO - Robert A. Whitney dreaded going to the bathroom. For almost four years after his 1997 hernia operation, the simple act of urinating caused bleeding and a fierce burning sensation that often drove him to his knees. The father of three young children became addicted to the narcotics his surgeon at Sturdy Memorial Hospital prescribed to dull the pain, and in the years that followed, he lost 40 pounds, his job, and his marriage.

Finally, a doctor in Boston told Whitney that the surgeon had made a terrible mistake, embedding surgical staples into his bladder. Whitney didn't know it at the time, but he wasn't alone: State regulators have alleged that Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez provided dangerously substandard care to at least seven other patients from 2000 to 2003, including two who died as a result.

But, by the time Massachusetts officials lodged formal charges against Veizaga-Mendez in January, the Bolivia-trained surgeon had already moved on to a new job at a veterans' hospital in rural Illinois - where he is in deep trouble again. The US Department of Veterans Affairs is investigating Veizaga-Mendez's role in the deaths of up to 10 patients over the past two years, including a 50-year-old Air Force veteran who died after what was expected to be routine gallbladder surgery on Aug. 9, 2007.

"When I heard about the veterans, I called my wife and said 'He's at it again,' " said Whitney, who has been pain-free since doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital removed the last staple from his bladder in 2001.

"They survived wars and bombs, and they go in for a simple operation and they die . . . I blame for everything."

Now the two US senators from Illinois want to know how Veizaga-Mendez, 69, could get a job in their state in January 2006 while he was under investigation for negligence in another. Several national databases are supposed to provide information on doctors who have been sued or punished for providing poor care, a setup designed to prevent them from continuing their practice by moving to another state. But Veizaga-Mendez showed how easy it is to beat the system: He simply relocated to an out-of-state hospital before the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine made public the results of an investigation that took more than two years.


Rest of article at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/28/trail_of_misery_follows_doctor/

[cornermouse]

1. Something you might want to look at in the future.

It only covers selected conditions and it appears that not enough doctors are participating in it, but it shows physicians who has qualified for recognition is certain areas.

http://recognition.ncqa.org/

cms.gov has been working on a physician quality index for a while now, (see http://www.cms.hhs.gov/PhysicianFocusedQualInits/) but they still appear to be stuck in "planning" mode.