Florida Ranks 35th in Discipline of Bad Doctors
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It's not a very good record by any definition. Florida's Board of Medicine has a poor showing in efforts to crack down on doctors who harm patients.
The survey comes from Public Citizen, the watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader and based in Washington, D.C.
Florida ranks 35th in serious disciplinary action per 1,000 physicians, as surveyed from 2004 through 2006. That below-average ranking is compared to 51 other state medical boards including the nation's capital.
The 34 other tougher medical boards imposed sanctions including revoking a license or suspension of license or probation. The survey shows Florida's medical board averaged 2.93 serious disciplinary actions per 1,000 physicians during that time period.
There are 52,343 licensed doctors in the state.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health, defended the medical board, which had no comment.
The Board of Medicine makes a decision in each case what's necessary to protect the public and not every case requires a specific restriction or suspension of practice to meet this purpose," said Eulinda Jackson, spokeswoman for the state health department. "However, the board in many cases uses rehabilitation and evaluation in order to ensure the practitioner is safe to practice."
Florida's best ranking was in 2001, when it came in 26th for discipline under a get-tough policy of Gov. Jeb Bush. The ranking dropped after that year.
Mississippi is the worst, Alaska the best in the Public Citizen survey. Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen believes the rankings are important.
State medical boards need greater autonomy and less pressure from the political arena and from state medical associations in order to focus on its mission of public advocacy, he said.