Prescription for Checking Out Troubled Doctors

There are several ways for medical schools, hospitals and members of the public to find out about doctors in trouble.

The National Practitioner Data Bank, authorized by Congress in 1986, keeps information such as licensing actions against doctors and malpractice payments. It is available to hospitals, state licensing boards and professional societies conducting credential reviews--but not the public.

The data bank has been operating since 1990 and doesn’t include disciplinary actions before September of that year. But the Texas-based Federation of State Medical Boards has older records and maintains files on revocations or other disciplinary steps taken by 66 state medical boards for doctors and osteopaths.

The agency responded to 300,000 queries last year, including those from hospital credentialing committees, said Dr. James Winn, the federation’s executive vice president.

Winn said his agency has a thick file on Michael Swango that includes licensing actions taken against him in Illinois and Ohio.

He added that safeguards to prevent bad doctors from manipulating the system are adequate, but that the medical profession must be encouraged to use them.

“It’s difficult for me to understand how a hospital would allow a physician to practice . . . and for them not to check out their credentials,” he said.

While the data bank and federation assist only professionals, the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, founded by Ralph Nader, developed its own book of “10,289 Questionable Doctors” for the public.

The book includes doctors who have been disciplined by the federal government and state licensing boards, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the group’s director.

For $15, citizens can buy books listing all “questionable” doctors in an individual state.

In the Ohio book, page 65 includes one doctor who has been in trouble. His name: Michael Swango.