Quest continues for medical board’s malpractice information online

My crusade to help you check out the medical malpractice history of your doctors has not ended, but there has been progress at the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners, so I'm not yet the Queen of Lost Causes.

The medical board's Executive Director Louis Ling said when the Web site http://medboard.nv.gov/ is finally updated, it will show the malpractice information that was removed in 2005. The holdup is the state Department of Information Technology, commonly called DOIT and commonly mocked as "Don't Do It."

"We had our part done in March and wanted it done by the middle of the session. We wanted the Legislature to see we were living up to our promises," Ling said.

The information was removed in 2005, after three years on the Web site. Doctors complained the public wouldn't understand malpractice information.

I started howling in protest in 2007 and gained supporters as diverse as Gov. Jim Gibbons and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, both saying public records should be available to the public on state Web sites. How often do they agree on anything?

In June 2008, the board agreed to put the information back on the site, estimating it would take six months. It's now summer of 2009 and it's not up. Ling said he's not making any promises of an exact date because his past predictions have all been wrong.

But I'll keep on top of it for you.

ANOTHER BOARD REMAINS CLUELESS: Now to the Board of Osteopathic Medicine. Welcome to 2009.

Its Web site http://license.k3systems.com/LicensingPublic/app?page=main&service=page, updated in January, has complete disciplinary documents available, which seemed to put it ahead of the medical examiners board. (However, the medical examiners board plans to do that too.)

The law reads the same for both boards. Doctors are supposed to report malpractice claims, settlements, awards and sanctions to the boards and that information is public record. You can call either board and ask for it, but you'd better take fast notes.

The osteopathic board isn't putting any malpractice information online.

Instead, I was advised the public could check Clark County's Blackstone system at http://courtgate.coca.co.clark.nv.us/

But those records rarely have settlement details of malpractice cases. It's also not easy to navigate or understand without a legal background. If your grandparents wanted to check if their doctors have a lot of malpractice cases upheld, they wouldn't find Blackstone helpful.

Speaker Buckley, who was upfront about the need of the medical examiners board to post the information online, was surprised at the osteopathic board's no-way position.

"It flies in the face of the legislative intent," she said. "Be honest with people. Don't try to pretend you're offering the information through another system, especially if the other system doesn't provide the same information."

The osteopathic board needs to be as upfront as the medical board. Otherwise, the osteopaths are making themselves vulnerable to a renewed effort to combine the boards. (Another good idea that failed in the Legislature, thanks primarily to opposition from Dr. Joe Hardy, an MD and GOP legislator from Henderson.)

It's not right or fair that one board provides malpractice information on doctors and the other doesn't. It's not fair to the doctors and it's not fair to the public.

AND THE WINNER IS: Lady Luck decided it was time to end the patriarchy at the Las Vegas Municipal Court.

After the six judges tied 3-3 in a vote for the new chief judge, after the first draw of the cards ended in another tie, the second draw Wednesday made Judge Betsy Kolkoski the new chief judge. Her queen of spades beat Judge Cedric Kerns' six of clubs.

Kolkoski is the first woman to be chief judge in a system formerly based on seniority. The late Judge Seymore Brown held the job for what seemed like forever, then Judge Toy Gregory, and then Kerns was acting chief during Gregory's illness. Two years ago, the seniority system got the boot through the Legislature at the urging of Kolkoski and Judge George Assad. The first chief chosen by an election was Judge Bert Brown.

For 12 years, judges in this court have squabbled among themselves and right now there are two distinct factions. Brown, Kerns and Cynthia Leung aligned on one side; Kolkoski, Assad and Martin Hastings on the other.

Lady Luck sided with the lady.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.