|
< = Click here to the story of Dr. Colantonio at Mercy Hospital.
-------------------
Semmelweis
Society International, Incorporated
"Physicians who are entrusted with the care of their patients
can see their professional careers destroyed if they dare to challenge a hospital's practices. When a 'whistleblowing' physician
is retaliated against, it threatens not only the physician's livelihood, but the care of all patients. This ... affects every
patient and potential patient in America."
Alan
Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
"Let us raise a
standard to which the Wise and Honest can repair." George Washington
Peer-Review with "Clean" Hands. V. S. Waite
M.D. FACS
| Career-safety requires |
|
|
| Due Process of Law. |
| HCQIA of 1986 legalized libel |
|
| in medical peer-review. Click here. |
| Sham peer-review tactics. |
|
| Click these pictures. |
No Due Process = Worse
Doctor-Shortage
~25% of new doctors come from other countries. There is
a shortage of U.S. doctors.
| What, Doctor Shortage? |
|
|
| Click here. |
| What, student debt? |
|
| Click here. |
"...update estimated that in 2033, physicians who opt for the standard
10-year loan repayment plan would see half of their after-tax earnings going to loan repayment. This could deter promising students from considering medical school..." AAMC
Reporter: January 2008
Administrators socialize with Chiefs of Staff. Whistleblowers are naturally, collusively discredited and destroyed (cf. Racketeer-Influenced
Corrupt Organizations Act). A National Data Bank precludes re-location by denying due process, thereby destroying careers:
Whistle-blowers' careers cannot be saved unless someone regards denial of due process as a medical tragedy and takes on established
interests, including hospitals, including churches' hospitals. All politics is local; with the National Data Bank, local politics
becomes national. Dr. Verner S. Waite founded the Semmelweis Society in 1986 after winning $514,000 from two doctors who importuned
a nurse at St. Francis Hospital, Downey, California to commit libel on their behalf. He was a Catholic who compared his Church's
cover-up of child-abuse with the denial of due process in American medicine. Other church corporations are involved in sham
peer-review (i.e. SDA in Hanford, California against Dr. Lyle Griffith), but sham review involves everyone, not just hospitals
or churches. We are all patients. Churches and hospials are not patients: Corporations are not people, although under U.S.
law they are persons. This distinction is why U.S. students may have to become doctors in other countries, pending an amendment
to U.S. law by the finest Congress corporate money can buy. Remember, this is a free country, and we have only ourselves to
blame for this situation. All animals are free; some animals are... As foreign doctors immigrate to the USA, they will be
similarly treated. The doctor-shortage in the Land of the Free will continue. Click here.
i
| 19-yo girl dies in ICU: |
|
| Administrators suspend whistleblower with no hearing: Could this be your hospital? Click here. |
| Letter to Joint Commission re Mercy Hospital's |
|
|
| risk for doctors and patients. Click. |
| No Access To Care |
|
| The Doctor-Shortage. Click here. |
| Dr. Christiansen, VA Hospital, |
|
|
| Missouri. Please click picture. |
| Cost of ethical medicine: Your |
|
|
| career. In a corporate culture, consider JD before MD. |
| HCQIA made hospitals unsafe |
|
|
| for doctor and patient. Click here. |
Amy Sorrel
AMA News
6 November 2009
Dear Ms. Sorrel;
A famous aphorism is that "One man's terrorist
is another man's freedom fighter". The medical world's corollary is that "One hospital administrator's disruptive physician
is another man's patient advocate".
As President of SSI, I help represent the interest's of physicians who have
been targeted for retribution for most commonly protecting our patients. Dr. Butler as a former president of and founder of
SSI has worked tirelessly to protect physicians so victimized. He put you in contact with Dr. Colantonio who has been suspended
for questioning the actions of an untrained and unsupervised physician extender who misplaced a tube thoracostomy ultimately
killing a patient. I had my hospital privileges suspended after reporting the deaths of multiple patients to the State of
SC at the hands of a "mercy killer" nurse. My surgical career has been interrupted for the great and radical offense of advocating
as a physician the radical concept that as a doctor "thou shalt not kill" is a reasonable concept. These actions which at
times stand in the way of corporate profit can result in the end of a doctor's medical career by being labeled as "DISRUPTIVE".
It is inherently wrong, but it remains standard operating procedure in Board Rooms across America.
We
may all agree that people who are deranged, abusive, unprofessional or serially antisocial may in fact be "disruptive", but
the current state of affairs that without due process and with near absolute civil immunity, allows one businessman to arbitrarily
and capriciously label another businessman as "disruptive" and with impunity to destroy the second business based upon mere
allegations without proof is unfair, unjust, and un-American. It is also the law of the land. At any time a hospital CEO can
with impunity utter the phrase "disruptive physician" and blackball any doctor who might stand in the way of corporate profit,
such that once so listed and placed on the National Practitioner Data Bank, that physician is unlikely to ever practice their
career again. Henry Waxman's dirty little law known as HCQIA is so utilized to exploit physicians and engage in serial mafioso-like
quasi-extortion measures to keep doctors in line and create a functional state of terror where any doctor who would dare have
the audacity to speak up for their patient, and against corporate profit, does so at great personal risk. This is medicine's
ultimate dirty little secret-but again one man's "disruptive physician" is another man's "patient-advocate".
Please
call if you would like to discuss further.
Sincerely,
BLAKE HARRISON MOORE, MD FACS CIME
President
Semmelweis Society International
ph-803-749-7497; c-803-447-4565
| Rakesh Wahi M.D.: New Amicus Curiae |
|
|
| From AAPS To Supreme Court. Click here. |
If safety
is the purported purpose of peer review, why does HCQIA grant immunity to commit libel even though collusive libel is racketeering
under R.I.C.O., the Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act written to contol organized crime? No one
has applied RICO to medicine, including Medicare-fraud and competitive conspiracy to commit libel at medical peer-review.
Abetting or
covertly acquiescing to peer-review with collusive libel is grounds for publicly investigating:
1. The
ethics, professional memberships, and state-licensure of Peer-Review Committee-
doctors. They are immune from prosecution but not from meeting ethical standards,
and no new doctors will be attracted to a hospital made unsafe by collusive
competitive defamation-for-profit;
2. The
tax-exemption of the Joint Commission;
3.
The certification and tax-exemption of the hospital in question;
4. The
qualification ocf the hospital in question for continued Medicare re-imbursement,
pending adjudication by a court of law which observes due process, in contrast to a
Peer-Review Committee which does not respect due process; and,
5. The
advertising claims made by the administrator to prospective new doctors
comparing by-laws of competing hospitals.
A Medicare-supported
hospital wastes tax money when it squanders Medicare funds on public relations, and a challenge such as Items 1-5
would consume the public relations department because, of course, peer-review bias is NOT the intent of HCQIA, even though
HCQIA fails to require due process. In this internet age, those who abuse peer-review can be followed from one hospital
to another. See the ~243 cases listed on this web site, with particular attention to cases in which patients died and
the whistle-blowing doctors were declared disruptive and then destroyed: SHALLER, MOORE, COLANTONIO.
Safety for patients and safety for doctors are related: With no due process in peer-review, American
medicine has been unsafe for doctor and patient since passage of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of
1986. As they choose a career, American college students understand that other countries seem
not to have this problem, such that it is safer to study medicine here and to practice medicine in other English-speaking
countries, pending:
1.
Adoption of due process by local hospital boards competing for doctors; or,
2. Amending
HCQIA to require due process in all matters, including peer-review; or,
3. An Executive Order:
"As
a matter of patient-safety, due process in peer-review as defined by the
United States Supreme Court is hereby made a Condition
of Reimbursement
for doctors accepting Medicare and for any institution accepting Medicare."
| How doctors became serfs. |
|
| Please click here. |
A doctor's career can be
destroyed for protecting patients: See Dr. Colantonio's case. Senior physicians, some no longer in practice, are
not defending his right to due process; the Joint Commission and the American College of Surgeons are silent: MBA's and JD's control MD's. Congress gave a tax-exemption
to non-profit hospitals, yet hospital lawyers attack doctors who protect patients. Why should hospitals have a
tax-exemption when they spend Medicare taxes? What justifies an exemption
and reimbursement, if not safety? Is Mercy Hospital unsafe for patients because it is unsafe for doctors?
Tax-supported administrators appear to collude to defame doctors, raising the possibility of violating the Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act written to control organized crime. "There is no federal statute that requires peer review committees to
observe due process, which the Supreme Court has defined as giving written notice of the actions
contemplated, convening a hearing, allowing both sides to present evidence at the hearing, and having an
independent adjudicator." Scott Segall J.D., William Pearl M.D. Businessmen
who control local hospital Boards can attract patients back to their hospital by respecting due process in
by-laws.
Read the letters (above) regarding a death at Mercy Medical Center (Rockville Centre, Long Island) and the destruction of
Dr. Colantonio's career there: U.S. medicine is not safe for doctors. College students, follow this case closely as you decide
whether to risk your future in a career the best Congress corporate money can buy has denied Constitutional rights to due
process. Read the article by a lawyer and a doctor on the need for impartial peer-review.
H.C.Q.I.A., the Health Care Quality
Improvement Act of 1986, renders U.S. medicine unsafe for doctors: The combined risks of debt and career-destruction
when declaring for patient-safety and of being pronounced 'disruptive' are too great. See the cases below, beginning
with the case of Dr. Colantonio at Mercy Medical Center, Rockville Centre, Long Island. College
students can follow these developments and act on their implication: Without due process,
neither the study nor the practice of medicine is safe, as ~243 cases on this web page demonstrate. Other countries appear not to have our problem; the USA has a doctor-shortage. To protect patient and doctor, the President should require due process as a Condition
of Reimbursement.
Organizations such as the Joint
Commission claiming tax-deductions in the public interest should
study these cases at their meetings and vote whether to protect doctors who protect patients.
Most hospitals accept public
money: They are de facto public utilities. If an administrator refuses to protect the public, he should face
a challenge to his tax exemption by local patients comparing his hospital with its competitors. His
hospital's Board may replace him. Loss of public funding through loss of tax-exemption applies to any tax-exempt organization.
Most hospitals accept public money: They are de facto public utilities. If an administrator refuses to protect the public,
he should face a challenge to his tax exemption by local patients comparing his hospital with its competitors. His hospital's
Board may replace him. Loss of public funding through loss of tax-exemption applies to any tax-exempt organization. In corporate
hospitals, the errant administrator changes hospitals or changes corporations. Click here.
| Due process. |
|
| Click here. |
| Dismissal, no hearing. |
|
| June McKoy, MD, JD, MPH |
| But Congress contradicted |
|
| the Constitution. |
Interns and residents are paid by Medicare via hospitals, nominally at ~$20/hour for working no more than 80 hours/week, although
the doctor does NOT receive $20/hour ($80,000/year). Does anyone know of federal or state law permitting these doctors, de
facto federal employees, to be fired without an impartial hearing? What do "professional ethics" and "professionalism" say
about what allegedly happened in this case? Click for details as to where your tax-money goes.
Read both
sides of this Johns Hopkins case: Was Dr. Oscar K. Serrano fired near the end of his second year of residency (second
year after internship) without due process in a heavily federally-funded medical school in the "Land of the Free"?
| Do contracts |
|
| protect interns |
| and residents |
|
| @ Johns Hopkins? |
| University funding: |
|
| Court-Immunity? |
| Federal employee fired |
|
| without a required hearing? |
| Dr. Lipsett |
|
| Dr. Freischlag |
|
| Dr. Steven Leach |
|
| Dr. Topalian |
|
Should Medicare-supported, non-profit hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission, itself a non-profit, risk loss of their
tax-exemptions if they attack doctors trying to protect patients? What about the Joint Commission itself and physicians' professional
societies if they, too, fail to protect doctors who protect patients? All such non-profit, tax-supported entities are de facto
public utilities; their administrators should be licensed and bonded to avoid "Enron ethics." See the cases listed on this
web site. U.S. medicine has been unsafe for doctors since passage of HCQIA in 1986, which made U.S. medicine dangerous for
doctors by withholding Constitutional due process. There is a (probably-unrelated) shortage of U.S. doctors estimated to reach
200,000 by 2020; we import ~25% of our new doctors. Immigrating doctors are probably unaware of these considerations, as are
most U.S. premedical students. Please click here. Heretofore universities have offerred MD/PhD Programs such as the Harvard/MIT
program. These circumstances (Vide infra) suggest that JD/MD in that order would also be appropriate, pending a Congressional
amendment to HCQIA.
| HCQIA killed due-process |
|
|
| for doctors. Click me. |
The Doctor-Shortage: ~200,000 by 2020.
Our USA faces a doctor-shortage estimated to
be 200,000 (out of ~788, 000) by 2020. We need doctors from elsewhere; already they constitute ~25% of our new doctors:
A question naturally arises whether doctors who immigrate will
be offered Constitutional protections which a law, HCQIA of 1986, denies to U.S.
doctors: Congress deliberately omitted due process from its peer-review law
(See "Should Due Process Be Part of Hospital Peer Review?") and will not amend it even though patients have died
(SHALLER, COLANTONIO, MOORE): Doctors are declared disruptive when they become whistle-blowers
for safety in hospitals. Congressmen also want to protect patients. The
United States Supreme Court ("Equal Justice Under Law") refused to hear SHALLER and POLINER ("Some
animals are more equal than others.")(See ~240 Cases). The Georgia court dismissed KURITZKY. A
Presidential Order would help restore Constitutional rights to U.S. doctors to protect them from reprisal when they
dare speak up for patient-safety in hospitals:
"Due process peer-review is required
for
Medicare reimbursement."
"A professional review body's failure to meet the conditions described in this subsection shall not, in itself, constitute
failure to meet the standards of this act."Click here for J. Hafter J.D.'s case challenging HCQIA's constitutionality.
| Dr. Waite at 2005-Washington meeting. |
|
|
| Click here for his successful California lawsuit, an outcome rendered unlikely by HCQIA. |
"Six of my cases were brought up for review
by a tissue committee controlled by competitors. A nurse (sic), employed by the Saint Francis Hospital, testified that I had
the highest rate of complication. Why such testimony was admitted is a matter of some interest, in itself. Liability
for bearing false witness is an important related matter, in itself, and falls under the topic of immunity. Under our
gracious new laws, I would not be able to win $500, 000 today were a nurse again caught committing libel."
Verner S. Waite M.D., Fellow, American College of Surgeons
Corporate conttributions control Congress: It omitted due process for doctors in
the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. Doctors now have less protection under the law than other citizens.
Doctors
speaking up for safety can be declared disruptive and lose their career. "Enron ethics" is the state of ethics
in hospitals controlled by businessmen in America: "There is no federal statute that requires peer review
committees to observe due process, which the Supreme Court has defined as (1) giving written notice of the
actions contemplated, (2) convening a hearing, (3) allowing both sides to present evidence
at the hearing, and (4) having an independent adjudicator." S. Segall J.D. & W. Pearl M.D.
"The failure to change and improve
the current system will continue to result in the loss of qualified and skilled physicians from their profession due to others
who maliciously pervert the current peer review process for their own selfish motives." Hall
See the link to Jacob Hafter J.D. under Lawyers for a case which may test
the constitutionality of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. Semmelweis Society was
incorporated to address this issue. AAPS, UAPD, and others have recognized the importance of keeping competition out
of peer-review:
"How Did Doctors Become Serfs?" by Jack Anderson. Click here.
Would you take your patients into hospitals
in which you faced being declared "disruptive" for protecting patients? If you were a college student, would you choose
to become a doctor in the USA under such a law? If you were a foreign doctor thinking of emigrating, would you be aware
of such a law?
Read the cases on this web site. Decide for yourself. More such cases are buried in the
National Practitioner Data Bank as doctors are declared "disruptive." Their careers are lost.
We
are all patients: The only way to protect ourselves as patients is to have independent peer review, that is, with due process
with adjudication acceptable to all. Congress is unlikely to legislate respect for due process, because Congress
is controlled by corporations, but local citizens can compare local hospitals and force the local Hospital Board to protect
doctors who protect patients.
| Nevada: Senator Reid, |
|
| please amend HCQIA of 1986. |
| N.Y.: Senator Schumer, |
|
| Help Dr. Colantonio. Escrow payment to an administrator destroying doctors supporting safety. |
| S.C.: Senator Graham, |
|
| Please investigate 4 hospital murders. Click pictures. |
| Virginia: Senator Webb, |
|
| Please investigate Dr. Raviotta's case of whistleblower-reprisal. |
h
Read 57 cases reported by Mr. Steven Twedt in 2003.
| Steve Twedt: The Cost of Courage |
|
|
| is a doctor's career. |
kk
Diagnosis: Medicare supports peer-review for profit. Doctors lose their career for
proprietary reasons unrelated to medical care: "There is no federal statute that requires peer
review committees to observe due process, which the Supreme Court has defined as giving written notice of the actions
contemplated, convening a hearing, allowing both sides to present evidence at the hearing, and having an independent
adjudicator." Scott Segall J.D., William Pearl M.D.
Doctors have been gagged by some businessmen running hospitals, including
some Medicare hospitals. Medicare accounts for a large fraction of money received by hospitals. Congress neglects
Medicare-funding into predictable insolvency, but U.S. medicine is
already unsafe for U.S. doctors and patients because of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986, which permits
busninessmen running U.S. hospitals to destroy doctors.
The Morbidity & Mortality Conference is a discussion
of complications by peers; its purpose is educational, corrective, professional, nonpolitical, and nonpunitive. In
contrast, the Hospital 'Peer-Review' Committee crosses specialty lines and is a de facto competency-hearing, a trial lacking
the procedural standards of due process, hence an unfair trial subject to abuse. In Dr. Waite's case, rival surgeons
persuaded a nurse paid by the hospital to lie under oath. Whereas Dr.
Waite was able to win his case and $559,000 in 1986, today HCQIA makes such career-defense impossible: In Dr. Colantonio's case, the administrator is trying to fire Dr. Colantonio for trying to protect patients.
A patients has died; a lawsuit is underway. Click on the picture above for details. This case is one among
similar cases: One has to ask
whether Mercy´ Hospital in New York accepts Medicare money, because if it does, then the next question is whether
we want our Medicare taxes spent to hire Medicare-hospital lawyers to destroy Medicare-doctors trying to protect us,
the Medicare-patients. These considerations apply irrespective of how Congress and President Obama decide to fund U.S.
medicine: U.S. medicine is unsafe for patients in part because it is unsafe for doctors as citizens: HCQIA
denies them due process of law.
Treatment: Take Politcs Out of Peer-Review: Stop spending Medicare
taxes on administrators who destroy doctors protecting patients before profits. As a Condition of Payment, Medicare should require competency hearings be conducted at
public expense, including attorneys' fees, outside the hospital in question by adjudicators acceptable to all parties:
Due Process. Remember, doctors trained in the "Land of the Free" do not have to practice
here. Other countries seem not to have biased peer-review the way we do: U.S. doctors can 'go international'
with their care, just as doctors from abroad will choose to come here before learning the costs of practicing medicine without
due process. Congress passed the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 without including due process in peer review.
Congressional control by hospital corporations is not going away, but the president has the power to require Medicare to pay
only trecipients who respect due process. Peer-review reform is a matter of respect for Constitutional
law: If we fail to respect due
process, what is there to defend in the "Land of the Free?"
"Six
of my cases were brought up for review by a tissue committee controlled by competitors. A nurse (sic), employed by the Saint
Francis Hospital, testified that I had the highest rate of complication. Why such testimony was admitted is a matter of some
interest, in itself. Liability for bearing false witness is an important related matter, in itself, and falls under
the topic of immunity. Under our gracious new laws, I would not be able to win $500, 000 today were a nurse again
caught committing libel." Verner S. Waite
M.D., Fellow, American College of Surgeons
College students, take note.
Pending reform in our 'Land of the Free' by a Congress controlled by corporations, you may want to become
a doctor in another English-speaking country where there is also a shortage of doctors. The 'immunity'
to which Dr. Waite refers in the paragraph above is our current legal immunity to lie under oath: Libel-immunity.
It is not part of our Constitution, nor worth continuing as part of our national heritage. Henry A.
Waxman J.D. has known of this problem for at least 18 years (i.e. the case of Dr. David A. Shaller). Mr. Waxman is not
about to retire.
| Reasons not to become |
|
|
| a U.S. doctor. Click here. |
| Due process |
|
|
| or no payment?" |
| How Did Doctors Become Serfs? |
|
|
| Click here. |
| Trust the finest Congress |
|
|
| money can buy? |
Hospital boards accept federal funds and disregard
due process in peer review: Should taxpayers grant them an exemption? Why become a doctor when
the risk of losing lifetime earnings is great? Medicare could correct this injustice: "As a condition of payment,
due process is required in all institutions receiving public funds, beginning with medical peer-review, hospital
appointments, and access." Do other countries run hospitals with public money and waste funds defaming doctors
who are trying to treat patients, in some cases excluding doctors from publicly-supported hospitals?
| JD's practice |
|
| medicine. |
| HCQIA of |
|
| 1986. |
| Doctors hurt |
|
| doctors. Chu. |
| Cooperate |
|
| for defense. |
| Dr. Waite at ACS ~1983. |
|
|
| Click here. |
"Six of my cases
were brought up for review by a tissue committee controlled by competitors.
A nurse (sic), employed by the Saint Francis Hospital, testified that I had the highest rate of complication. Why such testimony
was admitted is a matter of some interest, in itself. Liability for bearing false witness is an important related matter,
in itself, and falls under the topic of immunity. Under our gracious new laws, I would not be able to win $500,
000 today were a nurse again caught committing libel." Verner S. Waite M.D., FACS
u
| Are applications |
|
|
| falling? |
| Fewer applicants |
|
|
| to medical school |
p
p
l
| "Napoleonic |
|
| Law" |
| "A Fabricated |
|
| Peer Review" |
| Peer Review |
|
| Injustice |
| 1986 Award: |
|
| $559,000. |
"The failure to change and improve
the current system will continue to result in the loss of qualified and skilled physicians from their profession due to others
who maliciously pervert the current peer review process for their own selfish motives." Hall
lllllllllllll
Career-satisfaction
requires career-stability, but law denies doctors due process in peer-review: The Health Care Quality Improvement
Act of 1986 omits due process, thereby making U.S. Medicine unsafe for U.S. physicians! Expect smart
U.S. students to avoid the risks of U.S. Medicine. To correct peer-review injustice, persuade the best Congress "health-care" corporations (e.g. Main Line Health
of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) can buy to amend HCQIA; elect a local hospital-board that respects the rule of law: "Our
government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime
is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto
himself; it invites anarchy." Louis Brandeis, United States
Supreme Court
|
