suitcase-ga,
I have had a relative suffer due to medical malpractice (we settled
out of court) and can understand why someone might want this
information. However, I can't give you a definitive answer, but for
your fee I think I can direct you how to best proceed to get what you
are seeking.
Disclaimer 2: Nothing I do here should be considered as professional
or legal advice. You are recommended to consult competent authority
(such as a lawyer) for more definitive answers. I CAN direct you to
resources and tools by which you can better acquire more information.
My goal is to assist you in information seeking, and I would direct
you to ask for clarifications if you are having any problems with the
resources I recommend.
Disclaimer 2: Posting personal information about individuals in such a
forum is risk business (and usually prohibited). Where I CAN find such
information I will direct YOU how to get it, rather than put it in
this answer.
The ability to find the information you are seeking is dependent upon
the state laws in which this physician practices, as well as the rules
and regulations of the medical professional governing bodies. In
general, you will be more likely to get information from state
agencies, such as professional license numbers, etc., but most medical
professional organizations, including the American Medical Association
(AMA) will ONLY disseminate information either upon personal request,
when required by state law, or by legal subpoena. This would include
the information you are seeking on this individual. Often, only the
hospital (or hospitals) where the physician practices would have the
records you require. Again, it is dependent upon individual state law
as to what access you would have to that information. If you can
identify WHERE this person practices on your own, then contact those
entitites and express your desire to find out what statistics they
have on failed vs. successful procedures, you could get what you are
seeking. I personally recommend much stubborness.
You can look up basic licensing information for this Physician at:
Indiana Health Professions Bureau
https://www.ai.org/serv/hpb_lookup_ia
by putting in the first and last name of the professional in the
search form of the above database. Doing so indicates that there are
two licenses for this individual, one for Illinois and one for
Indiana. In order to get information other than minimal identifying
information (which state they practice in; which city; license number)
at this site, a fee of $2.50 per record ($5.00 total for two records)
is required. According to the information at the above site, you will
receive:
license number
practitioner name
license type
the city and state of record provided by the practitioner
current status/actions, such as, active, expired, probation,
suspension, revoked etc.
original issue date
expiration date
the date of birth (if available)
the full address of record as provided by the practitioner
If when you stated "I have the basic info on this surgeon" you are
indicating that you have already retrieved that information, my
apologies. Otherwise, you may wish to access the information via the
link supplied above.
The next step would go to the state agencies that regulate
professionals and determine if there is any legal requirement for that
state to track the information you seek.
For the state of Indiana (one of the states in which this individual
practices) I recommend:
Indiana Health Professions Burear
http://www.in.gov/hpb/
The specific section you might be interested in perusing (especially
for contact information) is:
Health Care Consumer Information
http://www.in.gov/hpb/consumerinfo/index.html
I also found a likely place for you to pursue acquistion of the
information you are seeking:
The Medical Licensing Section of the Office of the Attorney General’s
(OAG) Consumer Protection Division investigates and prosecutes
complaints against licensed health care practitioners.
Office of the Attorney General
Consumer Protection Division
402 West Washington Street, 5th Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-6330 or 1-800-382-5516
www.state.in.us/attorneygeneral
These are the people you should contact to ask about the availability
of the information you are seeking. Again I explicitly counsel
stubborness (having dealt with government entities in my career at
length).
For the state of Illinois (other place this individual is licensed to
practics) I recommend you start at the:
Dept. of Professional Regulation
http://www.dpr.state.il.us/
Where you can also do a professional license lookup:
License Look Up
https://www.dpr.state.il.us/licenselookup/default.asp
Choose the Profession:
Doctor - Physician - Licenses
and put in the last name and first initial as indicated.
According to my search, this individual has never been disciplined.
The broader web site is, again, where you should seek contacts for
information that may not be placed online.
The fact that there is not listed disciplinary action does not mean
that there is no pending legal action against this individual. For
such research, there are a number of "for fee" services on the
Internet. I am not explicitly recommending the following service
(with which I am toally unaffiliated) but I do use this site for such
research myself (there are competitors but services and pricing is
similar):
Knowx
http://www.knowx.com/
The Knowx service allows registration with a credit card and will
allow you to do comprehensive background searches for $7.95 (just to
search). When a search is completed it may cost up to $29.95 to
retrieve all records. Records retrieved for a BACKGROUND CHECK will
include (if they exist):
Bankrupcies
Judgements
Liens
Lawsuits
UCC filings
Even such searches may not uncover all legal actions, but these are
the tools used by professionals seeking information such as you are
seeking.
Finding out the success rate of medical procedures is the more
difficult task. After doing the above research, you should be able to
determine (if you don't know already) where this individual practices.
You will probably have to contact those institutions and hope that the
information you seek is not legally protected (hence requiring a
subpoena). In that case, you have no choice but to acquire competent
legal counsel.
Sometimes the answer to a question (as in this case) is ambiguous and
incomplete. In this case, if the Doctor has no pending lawsuits, and
has never screwed up (highly unlikely - I have Doctor relatives as
well - some failures and litigation goes with the territory). However,
I'm hoping you consider my attempt to give you the means to get as
close to the answer you are seeking to be adequate.
yours,
fugitive-ga |
