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发帖数: 534 | 1 Surgeon Accused of Faking Operations Surrenders Medical License
By LIZ NEPORENT | Good Morning America – 51 minutes ago
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Related ContentSurgeon Accused of Faking Operations Surrenders Medical
License (ABC News)View PhotoSurgeon Accused of Faking Operations …
An orthopedic surgeon accused of faking operations surrendered his medical
license voluntarily Monday and has admitted to guilt in some of the cases
against him, according to New York State court documents.
Dr. Spyros Panos, who formerly worked for the Mid Hudson Medical Group in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., surrendered his license to practice medicine in New York
this week following charges of medical misconduct. Panos faced at least 250
counts brought by the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct
involving fraud and negligence between 2007 and 2011, the court order showed
.
Doctor Accused of Faking Surgeries
Panos, 44, and his attorneys at Feldman, Kleidman & Coffey did not respond
to ABC News' requests for comment. Representatives for the Mid Hudson
Medical Group also failed to return calls for comment.
Larry Hughes, a spokesman for Saint Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where
Panos performed many of the surgeries under investigation, said he was
unaware of the surrender filing and couldn't comment.
In his response to the license surrender order, Panos admitted that he
failed to render appropriate care, didn't maintain accurate medical records
and submitted bills for seven former patients for which he was not entitled
to payment. The identities of the patients were redacted from court
documents to maintain their privacy.
The response also stated that Panos cannot "successfully defend against" at
least one alleged act of misconduct "in full satisfaction of the charges"
and that the surrender allows him to "resolve this matter without the
various risks and burdens of a hearing on the merits."
"It is a rare occurrence for the OPMC to put this type of pressure on a
physician and for the physician to lose his license," said J.T. Wisell, an
attorney for 154 of the more than 250 plaintiffs who have filed lawsuits
accusing Panos of performing botched or unnecessary surgeries, or pretending
to perform surgeries that never actually took place.
The Federation of State Medical Boards, which represents 70 state medical
boards, reported that of the three quarter of a million practicing
physicians in the United States, only 1,905 of them lost their licenses to
practice medicine in 2011. Of the more than 88,000 physicians who practiced
in New York State that same year, just 185 -- less than one percent -- lost
their licenses.
Fake Surgeries Are Rare but Hard to Spot
Panos was terminated from his employer, Mid Hudson Medical Group, in 2011
and is also the subject of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's
Office, although he has not been charged with a criminal offense, Wisell
said.
His alleged victims say they are grateful that he's out of business, at
least in New York.
"I'm glad someone finally stopped him," said Debra Cole, a retired telephone
company technician who is suing Panos for allegedly performing two faked
knee surgeries and causing her years of unnecessary pain. "To do everything
he's allegedly done and to be able to continue to operate on other people,
it was just terrible."
Debra Nenni McNamee, whose mother, Constance Nenni, died less than 24-hours
after having an alleged "phantom" knee surgery performed by Panos said she
hoped Panos' license surrender would start a domino effect.
"Now maybe the other medical professionals and facilities involved who
allowed him to do what he did will be held accountable or come forward to
prove they are not guilty," she said.
Arthur Caplin, the director of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center
and a former non-MD representative with the New York State medical licensing
board, said he also found it troubling that others besides Panos aren't
under investigation.
"You can't perform this many suspect surgeries without the cooperation of
many other people," he said.
Brian Brown, McNamee's attorney, said Panos used patients like her mother as
human cash registers, scheduling as many as 22 surgeries a day. The average
orthopedic surgeon typically schedules no more than 32 procedures a month,
according to American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons statistics.
Attorneys Brown and Wisell noted that clients with potential cases against
Panos began flooding their offices with calls immediately after journalist
Sarah Bradshaw wrote about the first few lawsuits for the Poughkeepsie
Journal in September 2010. Bradshaw said she was tipped off to the
litigation from an anonymous source.
Wisell said the latest developments should help the plaintiffs' cases
finally move forward after two years. But the lawsuits are by no means a
slam dunk because there is still a legal stay in place that prevents
plantiff's attorneys from taking sworn statements from any employee and
former employee of the Mid Hudson Medical Group or any hospital where Panos
practiced, Wisell said.
The stay was put in place for Panos to avoid self incrimination in the
federal cases of fraud and billing irregularities, Wisell said. Mid Hudson
Medical Group and the various hospitals and surgical centers where Panos
practiced have submitted billing records, surgical records and surgical
schedule logs to plantiff's lawyers but under the stay, are not yet required
to directly respond to civil actions, Wisell said.
Brown agreed, stating, "While this demonstrates that Dr. Panos is finally
willing to admit some guilt, it is clear from their legal strategy that his
former medical-group, MHMG, the hospitals involved and their legal team are
not. So they shamelessly continue to drag the victims through a tortured
litigation process and avoid taking simple responsibility for their profit-
driven failures."
Wisell also noted that Panos still has a license to practice medicine in
Virginia. While he is legally obligated to keep the Virginia state medical
board up to date about the legal consequences in New York, Wisell said it
could take some time before any action was taken and there is no federal
mandate that stops Panos from practicing medicine in other states.
McNamee said taking away Panos' license is a start, but it's not enough.
"He wakes up every morning spending the illegal funds he collected while his
victims wake up every day in pain," McNamee said. "In my mother's case, all
we have are memories." | r*****t
发帖数: 4793 | 2 什么是Faking Surgeries ？
切开了瞎鼓捣两下再缝上么？ |
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