CA Medical Board had “Bad Doc” overseeing “Bad Doc”
Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 in News Stories
Related Case Studies
18-year old Zoey had decided to get an abortion. As if the difficult decision wasn’t enough to occupy her mind, an uncaring doctor is just about to make things even worse. This will shock you…
Some mistakes are not a big deal. This one, however, is a pretty big deal. The California Medical Board admitted Tuesday that they had assigned a doctor who had been on probation to monitor another doctor under discipline.
In 2002, Dr. Andrew Rutland gave up his license after newly-born infants died during birth under his care. In 2007, he petitioned to the medical board to restart practicing medicine and won. The board put Dr. Rutland on probation, and, upon his request, appointed Dr. Christopher Dotson, Jr. to supervise him during his probation.
It is very surprising that the board did this, because Dr. Dotson himself had been disciplined before. After an incident in 1998 that involved the death of a patient, Dr. Dotson was placed on probation until 2005 by the board for gross negligence.
The board’s own rules state that only a doctor with a clean record can monitor another doctor on probation.
Last July, a 30-year-old lady named Ying Chin died after being administered Demerol and Lidocaine by Dr. Rutland in preparation for an abortion. The California Medical Board alleges that Dr. Rutland was at fault. While proceedings for that case is still underway, Dr. Rutland has been barred from performing any surgeries or deliveries in the interim. Apparently, Dr. Dotson has thus far written favorably regarding his charge, Dr. Rutland.
According to the LA Times, Dr. Dotson wrote, “In my opinion, Dr. Rutland is taking his probation very seriously and doing everything he can to more than meet the requisite requirements.”
The board finally removed Dr. Dotson as the probation supervisor for Dr. Rutland last week. The medical board claimed that the breach was the result of a “staff error.”
What_The_Heck
Feb 8th, 2010
Staff error?!? How hard is it to have a computer program (database if you will) that only has doctors on it, clear of any judgments, probations or other issues? In this day and age there should even be a website that shows this. The excuse of staff error is just ludicrous >:(