OTHER LICENSEES STORIES #2
It is very difficult to get physicians and licensees from other medical disciplines to put together a narrative of what occurred in their dealings with their licensing board. Reliving that trauma seems too much for many of them. Most have developed significant PTSD, they withdraw from those around them, they struggle economically, they may lose their spouse and kids, their dignity has been crushed, and they are significantly depressed, with many being suicidal. I can understand and empathize, especially the initial years after the final psychological and financial assault on the licensee that typically had already been building up for years prior. It's not losing a job, it's losing a career and the only life you have known for decades. It is literally the licensee's identity. Looking for work becomes an immense psychological burden because you are only educated and trained as a physician. Most of the folks I know in this position just fade into the background of life. Some are tortured forever and some ultimately take their life.
An email to a supposed 'investigative journalist', Wright Galloway in Portland, Oregon, prompted a physician tortured by the OMB to put together her narrative. God bless her for having the strength to share the unnecessary Hell she has been through. The email was sent to Wright Gazaway who seemingly has thrown it into the trash bin. Gazaway was initially contacted because of his fluff softball interview with Senator Ron "Shuck &Jive" Wyden, who is the father of the HCQIA of 1986, regarding medical board 'disciplines' (see link below). Big Ron knows the damage that the medical boards and FSMB are bringing down upon licensees, but does he care? Hell no, he lies instead! There is no way a physician is going from one state to another, or even to another country, with any medical board discipline on their record. What does Shuck & Jive Wyden really do for Americans other than suck up a paycheck, bennies, and insider stock knowledge?
katu.com/news/katu-investigates/lack-of-nationwide-standard-on-doctor-discipline-troubles-patients-lawmaker
An email to a supposed 'investigative journalist', Wright Galloway in Portland, Oregon, prompted a physician tortured by the OMB to put together her narrative. God bless her for having the strength to share the unnecessary Hell she has been through. The email was sent to Wright Gazaway who seemingly has thrown it into the trash bin. Gazaway was initially contacted because of his fluff softball interview with Senator Ron "Shuck &Jive" Wyden, who is the father of the HCQIA of 1986, regarding medical board 'disciplines' (see link below). Big Ron knows the damage that the medical boards and FSMB are bringing down upon licensees, but does he care? Hell no, he lies instead! There is no way a physician is going from one state to another, or even to another country, with any medical board discipline on their record. What does Shuck & Jive Wyden really do for Americans other than suck up a paycheck, bennies, and insider stock knowledge?
katu.com/news/katu-investigates/lack-of-nationwide-standard-on-doctor-discipline-troubles-patients-lawmaker
My initial letter to Wright Gazaway
wright_gazaway_letter_2.pdf | |
File Size: | 176 kb |
File Type: |
Mr. Gazaway, let me share an unsolicited letter with you
Dr. VanAmburg, MD sent me this email. Feel free to speak with her. She is a perfect representation of a licensee that isn't revoked, but has lost everything, including her career. As I relayed to you, 'revocation' is a relative term.
Ms. VanAmburg's email:
Dear Dr. Dover:
I have been reading your communication letters with Mr. Gazaway and I just wanted to write my story so that you can add it to your list of other physician stories. Those of us who have been adversely affected by the OMB are many and I am still very angry that there is no recourse and no accountability on the part of the OMB for their actions.
In my case, my license was not revoked, but a stipulated order was placed on it that requires training that is completely unavailable to me or any other surgeon. This effectively renders my license restricted without any end in sight and I have been unable to either get licensed in another state or obtain hospital privileges anywhere to continue a surgical practice. At this point, I have not done any surgery since February, 2019.
I believe my practice was targeted by the St. Charles Healthcare System in Bend, OR, because of my activity as Trauma Medical Director from 2009-2016. During that time, I attempted and was successful in starting a formal trauma service in the Level Two St. Charles hospital with the goal of providing better care for the trauma patients that we encountered in our hospital system. I wanted the hospital to emulate the trauma care precepts of the American College of Surgeons' Committee on Trauma with this formal trauma service and asked that they hire Trauma/Critical Care trained surgeons to run the service and care for the patients. For the first year of the service (10/2015-10/2016), the hospital hired one Trauma/Critical Care surgeon directly out of her training to help me start the service. She was excellent, and the service became very busy right away for us. Although we asked for help from the hospital, none was given to us until October of 2016. As for myself and my practice, I continued doing general surgery practice, as I knew I needed to maintain it until the trauma service was capable of running on its own, as well as rounding daily on the trauma service patients and taking weekday night calls. In addition, I was the county Medical Examiner for Deschutes County, largely because no one else would do it. I was also regularly traveling to Nuvasive in San Diego to train other surgeons nationally and internationally how to perform the anterior approach operation safely on patients. In a nutshell, I was way too busy over about a 2-year span (2014-2016). During that time, I had personal issues I was dealing with also (breakup with a partner who was a cardiovascular surgeon at the same hospital).
As a result of my overwhelming schedule, I became vulnerable to several lawsuits. My malpractice insurance company refused to ever let anything go to trial, preferring to settle, and then when other attorneys saw this, more lawsuits were filed. This was noticed by the hospital Board of Directors who then decided to suspend my operating privileges for several months in 2018. I finally convinced them to let me continue to operate, doing only one specific operation which was anterior approaches to the lumbar spine for disc replacement by the spine surgeons. No other surgeons in the community were doing the operation and none wanted to do this particular operation. Investigations into my practice and my operating statistics were done by my peers in the Medical Staff according to the bylaws and ultimately, they asked me to go to the PACE evaluation in San Diego, which I did. I had already initiated that evaluation to demonstrate that I was being compliant. The cost for that was about $23,000. I came through their evaluation with flying colors and the report was submitted to the Medical Staff Investigation Committee and the Board of Directors (BOD). In spite of the Medical Staff voting to reinstate all my operating privileges, the BOD voted to terminate my privileges, so this was done on February 28, 2019. I have not been able to operate since that time.
In the aftermath of a "Fair Hearing" with the St. Charles BOD which resulted in the panel finding against me, the OMB decided to investigate me and my practice to see what was going on. This was triggered by the suspension and terminal of my privileges. They asked for several charts of patients who had been the plaintiffs in the above mentioned lawsuits, which I provided to them. Then they sent a letter requiring me to come for an "interview" with a panel of surgeons at the OMB. At the time Dr. Dean Gubler was the Chairman for the OMB and he was present at the "interview". Needless to say, the interview which my malpractice attorney attended with me, was grueling and unpleasant. Dr. Gubler in particular, was rude to me by asking me to describe how I perform a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, and as I started to describe the operation, he interrupted me to say that I was wrong and that I needed to read SAGES literature and watch their videos to learn how to do this operation. At that point, I repeated that I have done nearly 1000 of these operations with only three instances of common bile duct injury which is completely within the national norms for that particular complication and he cut me off again, saying that, at my age, I should be getting better at doing the operation rather than worse, and said the "interview" was over. Eventually, the OMB initiated a stipulated order which outlined a few relatively easy actions I needed to take, including taking courses on communication and record-keeping, consulting with a professional coach, as well as finding a mentor to review a percentage of my cases and make quarterly reports to the OMB about my situation. The order that I could not comply with was to get remedial training in hepatobiliary surgery. The only stipulation there was that the course needed to be approved by the OMB Director. Just before Covid hit, I found a course with the Cleveland Clinic; I presented it to the OMB Director and he rejected the course, saying it was not comprehensive enough. The only other option was to do a hepatobiliary fellowship for a year in a metropolitan institution. At 58 years of age, I was not going to do that with only a few years of practice remaining. I was able to do everything in the order except the hepatobiliary fellowship. I had no privileges anymore and although I tried to get them in hospitals in Oregon and California, no one would grant privileges to me. I couldn't operate in hospitals. I couldn't operate or do endoscopy in Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) because I had no hospital privileges. I essentially couldn't do anything unless it was completely confined to my office. This is not sustainable for a general surgeon. For about a year, I did procure a mentor who was a previous OMB Chairman to review the wound care charts I gave him and to sign quarterly reports that I wrote for him to send to the OMB on my behalf. He finally wrote and asked the OMB to stop that requirement, as it was not constructive in my current situation with no privileges and no operations to critique. I did work for a year as a wound care surgeon in central California, but the pay was pathetic and I was flying my own airplane weekly to the locations to provide care.
During this whole saga, there was no meaningful physician support or counselling available to me. The County Medical Society President tried to help me by directing me to a counsellor/physician. She turned out to be a pediatric psychiatrist and just gave me her "sad eyes" look of pity. The Physician's Committee asked me to spend time with a community psychiatrist, Dr. Campbell, who assessed me and deduced that I had no mental illness and furthermore was totally capable of continuing my practice. I met with him at least three times, before he retired and was no longer seeing patients. There was never any recommendation from the hospital for me to get help with a counsellor or professional coach. The OMB required it in their stipulated order, but at that point, they had already made an impossible requirement with no hope of reestablishing my license or privileges.
I am 62 years old now and this is when I would have liked to retire, but between the attorneys preying on me, poor malpractice insurance assistance, St. Charles BOD, and the OMB placing an impossible stipulated order on me, my career in general surgery was devastated in 2019. In retrospect, my colleagues have told me that not operating during the Covid debacle was better, but I am still very bitter that my career was truncated due to a hospital BOD that had no respect for PACE findings and my physician peers' recommendation in my case, and the OMB who enforced an impossible stipulated order which prevents me from being able to gain licensure in any other state (I attempted to get licensed in AZ).
I am also licensed in California and in Kansas. Of course, both states had to do their own investigations into my "negligence and unprofessional conduct" and they report the stipulated order in Oregon on their websites. California made a public reprimand and Kansas basically said they would stick by the Oregon stipulated order which restricts my license to not do laparoscopic hepatobiliary operations.
I am thankful for one thing in the aftermath of my career saga, and that is that I was not working in healthcare through much of the Covid hysteria and as a result I chose not to take the mRNA biological agent and was not "forced to" to remain in practice. I totally agree with your perspective on the Covid disaster and fallout from the mRNA biological agent. At this point, there is nothing to do but try to care for those who are suffering from the terrible side effects of that agent.
Thank you for all the hard work you are doing on the OMB issues as well as the Covid issues. If there is any way that I can help out, please let me know. The world seems to have gone completely upside down now and I seem to be located on the wrong side of the fence on all issues. I hope that Americans can pull ourselves out of the mess we have made soon.
Best regards,
Jana VanAmburg, MD, FACS
So Mr. Gazaway, the ball is in your court. What are you going to do with it? You are supposedly an 'investigative journalist'.
Respectfully
Eric Dover, MD
Mr. Wright Gazaway has never contacted me. He's as much of an 'investigative journalist' as I am an astronaut. Mr. Gazaway is a tool of the system doing as he is told by his plantation masters. I wonder how far he'd go to please his owners.
Ms. VanAmburg's email:
Dear Dr. Dover:
I have been reading your communication letters with Mr. Gazaway and I just wanted to write my story so that you can add it to your list of other physician stories. Those of us who have been adversely affected by the OMB are many and I am still very angry that there is no recourse and no accountability on the part of the OMB for their actions.
In my case, my license was not revoked, but a stipulated order was placed on it that requires training that is completely unavailable to me or any other surgeon. This effectively renders my license restricted without any end in sight and I have been unable to either get licensed in another state or obtain hospital privileges anywhere to continue a surgical practice. At this point, I have not done any surgery since February, 2019.
I believe my practice was targeted by the St. Charles Healthcare System in Bend, OR, because of my activity as Trauma Medical Director from 2009-2016. During that time, I attempted and was successful in starting a formal trauma service in the Level Two St. Charles hospital with the goal of providing better care for the trauma patients that we encountered in our hospital system. I wanted the hospital to emulate the trauma care precepts of the American College of Surgeons' Committee on Trauma with this formal trauma service and asked that they hire Trauma/Critical Care trained surgeons to run the service and care for the patients. For the first year of the service (10/2015-10/2016), the hospital hired one Trauma/Critical Care surgeon directly out of her training to help me start the service. She was excellent, and the service became very busy right away for us. Although we asked for help from the hospital, none was given to us until October of 2016. As for myself and my practice, I continued doing general surgery practice, as I knew I needed to maintain it until the trauma service was capable of running on its own, as well as rounding daily on the trauma service patients and taking weekday night calls. In addition, I was the county Medical Examiner for Deschutes County, largely because no one else would do it. I was also regularly traveling to Nuvasive in San Diego to train other surgeons nationally and internationally how to perform the anterior approach operation safely on patients. In a nutshell, I was way too busy over about a 2-year span (2014-2016). During that time, I had personal issues I was dealing with also (breakup with a partner who was a cardiovascular surgeon at the same hospital).
As a result of my overwhelming schedule, I became vulnerable to several lawsuits. My malpractice insurance company refused to ever let anything go to trial, preferring to settle, and then when other attorneys saw this, more lawsuits were filed. This was noticed by the hospital Board of Directors who then decided to suspend my operating privileges for several months in 2018. I finally convinced them to let me continue to operate, doing only one specific operation which was anterior approaches to the lumbar spine for disc replacement by the spine surgeons. No other surgeons in the community were doing the operation and none wanted to do this particular operation. Investigations into my practice and my operating statistics were done by my peers in the Medical Staff according to the bylaws and ultimately, they asked me to go to the PACE evaluation in San Diego, which I did. I had already initiated that evaluation to demonstrate that I was being compliant. The cost for that was about $23,000. I came through their evaluation with flying colors and the report was submitted to the Medical Staff Investigation Committee and the Board of Directors (BOD). In spite of the Medical Staff voting to reinstate all my operating privileges, the BOD voted to terminate my privileges, so this was done on February 28, 2019. I have not been able to operate since that time.
In the aftermath of a "Fair Hearing" with the St. Charles BOD which resulted in the panel finding against me, the OMB decided to investigate me and my practice to see what was going on. This was triggered by the suspension and terminal of my privileges. They asked for several charts of patients who had been the plaintiffs in the above mentioned lawsuits, which I provided to them. Then they sent a letter requiring me to come for an "interview" with a panel of surgeons at the OMB. At the time Dr. Dean Gubler was the Chairman for the OMB and he was present at the "interview". Needless to say, the interview which my malpractice attorney attended with me, was grueling and unpleasant. Dr. Gubler in particular, was rude to me by asking me to describe how I perform a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, and as I started to describe the operation, he interrupted me to say that I was wrong and that I needed to read SAGES literature and watch their videos to learn how to do this operation. At that point, I repeated that I have done nearly 1000 of these operations with only three instances of common bile duct injury which is completely within the national norms for that particular complication and he cut me off again, saying that, at my age, I should be getting better at doing the operation rather than worse, and said the "interview" was over. Eventually, the OMB initiated a stipulated order which outlined a few relatively easy actions I needed to take, including taking courses on communication and record-keeping, consulting with a professional coach, as well as finding a mentor to review a percentage of my cases and make quarterly reports to the OMB about my situation. The order that I could not comply with was to get remedial training in hepatobiliary surgery. The only stipulation there was that the course needed to be approved by the OMB Director. Just before Covid hit, I found a course with the Cleveland Clinic; I presented it to the OMB Director and he rejected the course, saying it was not comprehensive enough. The only other option was to do a hepatobiliary fellowship for a year in a metropolitan institution. At 58 years of age, I was not going to do that with only a few years of practice remaining. I was able to do everything in the order except the hepatobiliary fellowship. I had no privileges anymore and although I tried to get them in hospitals in Oregon and California, no one would grant privileges to me. I couldn't operate in hospitals. I couldn't operate or do endoscopy in Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs) because I had no hospital privileges. I essentially couldn't do anything unless it was completely confined to my office. This is not sustainable for a general surgeon. For about a year, I did procure a mentor who was a previous OMB Chairman to review the wound care charts I gave him and to sign quarterly reports that I wrote for him to send to the OMB on my behalf. He finally wrote and asked the OMB to stop that requirement, as it was not constructive in my current situation with no privileges and no operations to critique. I did work for a year as a wound care surgeon in central California, but the pay was pathetic and I was flying my own airplane weekly to the locations to provide care.
During this whole saga, there was no meaningful physician support or counselling available to me. The County Medical Society President tried to help me by directing me to a counsellor/physician. She turned out to be a pediatric psychiatrist and just gave me her "sad eyes" look of pity. The Physician's Committee asked me to spend time with a community psychiatrist, Dr. Campbell, who assessed me and deduced that I had no mental illness and furthermore was totally capable of continuing my practice. I met with him at least three times, before he retired and was no longer seeing patients. There was never any recommendation from the hospital for me to get help with a counsellor or professional coach. The OMB required it in their stipulated order, but at that point, they had already made an impossible requirement with no hope of reestablishing my license or privileges.
I am 62 years old now and this is when I would have liked to retire, but between the attorneys preying on me, poor malpractice insurance assistance, St. Charles BOD, and the OMB placing an impossible stipulated order on me, my career in general surgery was devastated in 2019. In retrospect, my colleagues have told me that not operating during the Covid debacle was better, but I am still very bitter that my career was truncated due to a hospital BOD that had no respect for PACE findings and my physician peers' recommendation in my case, and the OMB who enforced an impossible stipulated order which prevents me from being able to gain licensure in any other state (I attempted to get licensed in AZ).
I am also licensed in California and in Kansas. Of course, both states had to do their own investigations into my "negligence and unprofessional conduct" and they report the stipulated order in Oregon on their websites. California made a public reprimand and Kansas basically said they would stick by the Oregon stipulated order which restricts my license to not do laparoscopic hepatobiliary operations.
I am thankful for one thing in the aftermath of my career saga, and that is that I was not working in healthcare through much of the Covid hysteria and as a result I chose not to take the mRNA biological agent and was not "forced to" to remain in practice. I totally agree with your perspective on the Covid disaster and fallout from the mRNA biological agent. At this point, there is nothing to do but try to care for those who are suffering from the terrible side effects of that agent.
Thank you for all the hard work you are doing on the OMB issues as well as the Covid issues. If there is any way that I can help out, please let me know. The world seems to have gone completely upside down now and I seem to be located on the wrong side of the fence on all issues. I hope that Americans can pull ourselves out of the mess we have made soon.
Best regards,
Jana VanAmburg, MD, FACS
So Mr. Gazaway, the ball is in your court. What are you going to do with it? You are supposedly an 'investigative journalist'.
Respectfully
Eric Dover, MD
Mr. Wright Gazaway has never contacted me. He's as much of an 'investigative journalist' as I am an astronaut. Mr. Gazaway is a tool of the system doing as he is told by his plantation masters. I wonder how far he'd go to please his owners.
Mike Brooks
Roy Blackburn
Richard Kaul
Kernan
Other documents I have
Roy Blackburn
Richard Kaul
Kernan
Other documents I have