A state medical board can review a doctor’s case, find nothing wrong, and close it, and the report to the National Practitioner Data Bank still stays. That’s what Aysun Alagoz, an OB/GYN in Texas, says happened to her. In 2011 she had a solo practice in a small town, about nine years in. A hospital executive called and told her to come to an urgent meeting. Nobody would say what it was about. She was accused of mismanaging a colleague’s patient while she was on call, a pregnant woman with high blood pressure. She wasn’t allowed to see the written complaint, and in two days there was no way to get a lawyer. She was given a summary suspension and walked off the premises. She had until Monday to resign her privileges or be reported to the data bank. She says a summary suspension is an automatic referral anyway, so she refused, to keep a paper trail of her side. What followed, in her account: 1. A small committee of physicians reviewed the case and wrote that she should be allowed to resign rather than be reported. 2. The executive committee reported her anyway. The board of directors gave the same answer, with no explanation. 3. The Texas Medical Board took about a year, found nothing wrong, and closed the case. 4. The data bank entry stayed. She was told she could add her own comments, but she says nobody reads those. She couldn’t find a job for about two years and lost several jobs once they queried the data bank. She says the patient’s diagnosis turned out to be a migraine headache, and the colleague who filed the complaint never called her to ask a question. Her bylaws allowed an outside review, she says, and none happened. Her argument about why this keeps happening: the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 makes people who sit on peer review committees immune to lawsuits. She has heard of doctors who sued for bad faith, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, and lost. Her advice if you get the call: Delay the meeting if you can. Go with a lawyer, or at least consult one who represents doctors in peer review. Don’t agree to anything. Don’t be afraid. The line she was given about the data bank: “Once it’s on the data bank it stays on the data bank.” Listen to the full conversation on The Podcast by KevinMD. Link in the replies. Search "The Podcast by KevinMD" wherever you listen to podcasts What would you do in the first hour after a call to an urgent peer review meeting with no reason given? #ThePodcastbyKevinMD