Guest guest Posted August 10, 2008 Report Share Posted August 10, 2008 I received the following this morning. This has been going on for so long now, but now it really looks as though we are goiong to loose yet another good doctor - what IS happening???? Luv - Sheila ----- Original Message ----- From: " Vlok Dommisse MD " To concerned Patients, Professionals, Family, and Friends whose e-addresses I have in my e-address books, I am sorry to have to report that the Arizona Medical Board, at its meeting on Wednesday, 6 Aug., despite my pointing out the illegality of such a step (see below), voted to continue to pursue the revocation of my license to practice allopathic medicine in Arizona within about a month from now! I will still, in this next week, appeal this decision to the AZ Superior Court in Phoenix and ask the judge to stay the revocation for the several months until the appeal has been heard. I can also tell patients that, even in the event that I do not retain my license, I have a viable plan in mind that can enable me to continue to treat those patients who are willing to sign a legal Private Member Association Agreement with me and are financially able to pay me privately for care (since health insurance only covers licensed physicians). For most patients, I would probably need to order less blood tests than when they are covered by insurance. If my license is revoked, I am also exploring the legal ways of getting my blood tests ordered, and of patients getting prescriptions legally filled that I recommend. Since patients are now allowed to order their own blood tests, at least some of them, and are also able to obtain prescription medications without their own physician prescribing them, this may not be a problem. I would continue to sell supplements from my office and would hope to expand that function, giving more of my time to free counseling of people who are buying supplements, and, while I have never expected people to buy the supplements that I sell, I may need to at least make that request then, as a way of enabling me to continue to make a living from the same office in the same city for the several remaining years that I plan to work full-time, and then even part-time for some years after that. The biggest illegality of this Board Decision is the same one made by the Administrative Court Judge: Not granting me peer review, even by the AZ Rules and Statutes governing their physician regulatory process. Of the 16 cases against me, all except one trumped up by the Board itself and two 'quackbuster' physicians, 15 were sham-peer-reviewed and only ONE was reviewed by a physician qualifying, by Arizona's own standards, to review my work! That physician, who runs an Integrative Medicine Dept at a major medical school, found NO indictable problem with the case and records that he reviewed and praised many aspects of my work with that case. The physicians who reviewed the 15 other cases were not only not nutritional physicians but also did not qualify as other types of physicians who had substantial training, education, experience, observation or association with nutritional medicine. So the Board's lawyer, a ghoulish-looking character named Sillyman, came up with the 'necessary' lie that, actually, after all these years of listing 'Nutrition' (NTR) as a recognized allopathic practice area in Arizona, the AZ MD bd does NOT recognize nutritional medicine!! Of course this is just a ruse, intended to paper over the fact that the vast majority of their physicians who reviewed my cases could NOT be regarded as qualified peer reviewers. Sillyman also lied when he said that 3 of the 4 physicians who testified for the Board in the hearing were endocrinologists! He knows very well what these physicians' specialties are; their specialties were mentioned in the hearing; only one was an endocrinologist (working for a pharmaceutical co., which is anathema to nutritional medicine!), and the other 3 were a hematologist, an allergist, and a rheumatologist! The implication that endocrinologists would qualify as peer reviewers is also a lie since peer review is supposed to be practice-area-specific and not diagnosis-specific. Thus, e.g., just because endocrinologists also treat thyroid and other hormonal disorders, which nutritional and anti-aging physicians also do, does not mean that they qualify as knowing how nutritional physicians treat these conditions - which is very different from the way that endocrinologists do. Despite paying my 2 main lawyers in my previous appeal, in 2005, $200K to pursue this issue of peer review, when it came to the 2-hour hearing, they still did not do it! That is why I am suing them for malpractice. And, despite MY OWN pursuit of this issue in the hearing at the end of April, AND my writing repeatedly to the Board about it over the past 3 years, the Decision has STILL come down the way it has! Hopefully, I will finally get justice this time in the AZ Superior Ct, but, as I say, I have another plan, in case I still do not. The Private Member Association Agreement is a legal contract drawn up by the Constitutional Law advisor who has been advising me in all my legal battles over the past 2 years, at far lower cost and with far more hope of success, than what I paid financially and in legal losses with the AZ lawyers I consulted previously. He has several physicians using these Agreements with their patients, since 1994, and has had NO legal challenges to these legal contracts (such as, one might imagine, " practicing medicine without a license " ). For the reasons mentioned above, it does not have all the advantages of an unfettered medical license - but I don't have an unfettered medical license, and the huge advantage would be that I would be beyond the jurisdiction of the Board and, provided I do not actually cause any serious harm to a patient, would be free to practice without anyone looking over my shoulder and wrongly second-guessing my work. On a personal note, I can give some assurance that the increased depths of spirituality that I have been forced to go into in order to deal with this huge unjustified burden is greatly helping to sustain me in its awesome way. However all this turns out, I want to thank you ALL for your wonderful support and trust that you will continue to support me and my work to the best of your ability, if at all possible. Warm wishes, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.