When the new specialist in town is a disaster.
It happens every few months. The hospital brings in a procedure based specialist or surgeon and promotes the doctor as the greatest thing on the planet. Based on the advertising, you would think the Mayo Clinic has suddenly moved itself to your town.
In fact, when you review the training credentials, they appear very sound and often very impressive. This person may, in fact, be the real deal. It looks like this is a specialist and/or surgeon warranting your trust as a referring doctor.
Then, things happen. Your first few patients experience complications. “This happens,” you tell yourself and the patient. Yes, complications do happen to even the greatest of doctors.
Now, as a referring doctor, you find yourself at a disadvantage. With your small case sample size, it is difficult to know a trend versus a peculiar streak of bad luck. The hospital, however, holds this information and is aware of such dark secrets far earlier than you as the referring doctor. The hospital keeps silent. Even if you ask about a concerning trend, they will not tell you.
So, you give the benefit of the doubt. Again, the credentials are strong. The new person seems very nice and professional.
Then, a catastrophe happens. Often, it is so bad that it reaches the level of a “Never Event,” which is something really awful and it might even have killed or maimed a patient.
It might be your patient or it might be someone else’s patient. It might not even be the doctor’s first catastrophe. Suffice it to say, lawyers will be climbing all over the charts. You, the referring doctor who trusted the hospital to “have your back” have been totally blind sided.…
And… the doctor vanishes off the face of the Earth. There is no explanation. It is as if a hospital version of “Black Ops” swept in and eliminated the promising new doctor. Meanwhile, you and your patients are left wondering: “What the heck happened?”
Meanwhile, the hospital which so loudly promoted the doctor ignores your inquiries and is silent… until… They come to your office to heavily promote the next new specialist they just hired, who is guaranteed to turn your little hospital into the next Mayo Clinic!
I lived and worked in a rural area. If the specialty docs didn’t like it, they left and went someplace else. Good for me to be retired now. Kurt
Look up the Jayant Patel case in Australia, see that this problem is not unique to the USA.
Whistleblower nurses were threatened with jail. That’s the difference between our private industry hospital administrators, bad as they are, and government hospital administrators, equally amoral and corrupt, but with the power of government behind them.
Hmmmm… the Data Bank was supposed to eliminate this problem