What Can State Medical Boards Do to Effectively Address Serious Ethical Violations?

J Law Med Ethics. 2023;51(4):941-953. doi: 10.1017/jme.2024.6. Epub 2024 Mar 13.

Abstract

State Medical Boards (SMBs) can take severe disciplinary actions (e.g., license revocation or suspension) against physicians who commit egregious wrongdoing in order to protect the public. However, there is noteworthy variability in the extent to which SMBs impose severe disciplinary action. In this manuscript, we present and synthesize a subset of 11 recommendations based on findings from our team's larger consensus-building project that identified a list of 56 policies and legal provisions SMBs can use to better protect patients from egregious wrongdoing by physicians.

Keywords: Egregious Wrongdoing; Physician Misconduct; Policy Change; Protecting Patients; State Medical Boards.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Licensure, Medical
  • Physicians*
  • Professional Misconduct*