One study found that the answer is in the thousands. While some states are better than others, there are many doctors across the nation who are guilty of serious malpractice who still keep their licenses. Even if they have been fined in the millions of dollars for malpractice, and even if they have been banned by certain hospitals, their licenses are still spotless, and they can continue with their profession.
A Florida doctor had to pay a combined total of $1.1 million during 1993 to 2009 for six different medical malpractice lawsuits. Due to being considered an "immediate threat to health or safety", this doctor was suspended from a hospital. Another facility suspended this doctor in 2005, and yet, this doctor has an unrestricted, unblemished license.
One California doctor had to pay about $2.1 million in malpractice lawsuits from 1991 to 2008, for eight different cases. A hospital placed restrictions on this doctor two different times in 2007, and then finally barred this doctor a year later. This doctor still has an unrestricted license and can practice medicine elsewhere.
In Louisiana, a doctor had to shell out $2.7 million for medical malpractice over 1992 to 2007. Five of these nine cases included patients who had died at this doctor's hands. Two of these patients were little girls. The doctor lost privileges at a clinic, but the license is perfectly clean.
One doctor in Texas had prescribed a toxic overdose of painkillers for one mother of three. This was less than a year after another woman had died from a prescription that combined painkillers with psychiatric medicine. This was all after a history of abusing drugs himself, and then having restrictions on his license and fines imposed. He provided prescriptions without including justification for them. He would even write refills ahead of time without giving a reason. Even after all this misconduct, he was still allowed to see patients. It was not until four years after the mother's death that the doctor was finally forbidden from treating patients. If the process of investigating the doctor had not been so slow, lives may have been saved.
Even though state medical boards may at times be too lenient with doctors, the slow process is not entirely their fault. Working within the constraints of a shrinking budget, it can take years to follow the course of the law. One of the bigger issues are with the hospitals themselves. The peer review committees slow the whole process down, sometimes shielding doctors who have committed egregious errors.
This is all based on a study conducted by USA Today, which looked over information available to the public from various sources, including the National Practitioner Data Bank. They were able to examine, for example, doctor's licenses, any amount paid for malpractice lawsuits, and restrictions placed by hospital on any doctors. The names of the doctors are taken out of these records, however. Much of what the study found was disturbing.
In about the past decade or so, about 6,000 doctors have been banned or limited by hospitals and other medical facilities from practicing, due to the doctors' malpractice. Of those thousands, more than half were never slapped with a fine or a restricted license. Thousands of these doctors retained their licenses, without blemish, free to continue a faulty practice.
It was found that almost 250 doctors who are considered an "immediate threat to health and safety" by various organizations did not even have their licenses restricted, much less revoked. Between 2001 and 2011, investigators found that almost 100,000 doctors had to make malpractice payments. Eight hundred of these physicians accounted for 10 percent of these settlements, settlements which amounted to $5.2 million on average. That entails horrific malpractice. Still, less than twenty percent of them had anything done to their medical licenses.
On average, people who go to a doctor can expect excellent care, and they should. The problem remains however, that there are too many doctors who have an unrestricted license after malpractice. If you or a family member has been the victim of medical malpractice, contact a medical malpractice attorney today.