Checking a doctor’s record: good luck with that

It's next to impossible to find out whether your doctor has been sued for malpractice or has been the recipient of disciplinary actions for gross negligence, substance abuse, sexual misconduct, and over-prescribing controlled substances. The National Practitioner Data Bank collects data on medical malpractice payouts and certain levels of disciplinary actions, but only hospitals, doctors, law enforcement, insurance companies, and a few other select groups are granted access.

The May, 2016 Consumer Reports magazine describes a case in point. They tried to find information about Dr. Leonard Kurian, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Southern California who had numerous cases of malpractice, including two deaths and the removal of a healthy ovary instead of the diseased one. After filing requests for information plus much delving into California’s State Medical Board site, they were able to obtain Dr. Kurian’s records. I tried it and had no luck.

In the case described in the magazine, a pregnant woman selected Kurian as her doctor after having performed a typical online search, including Yelp. In fact, she was persuaded by reviews on Yelp to choose him, not knowing that he had already been reprimanded by the state medical board in 2006 for negligent and incompetent care as well as dishonest behavior. On Yelp, he had a rating of four out of five stars. On another site, Healthgrades, he had 3.4 out of 5 stars. Healthgrades did mention a sanction against him, but it was for “failure to keep adequate medical records.” That site showed no malpractice lawsuits against him even though the Los Angeles County courthouse has a record of 18 in which he was named.

At any rate, in the final weeks of her pregnancy, the patient went to the emergency room with excruciating pain in her side. While there, her labor began. But the pain didn’t subside after the birth of her daughter. It turns out her appendix had ruptured, yet Kurian stuck with an alternative diagnosis. Not only that, he never read the nurses notes and was unresponsive to phone calls (it took 10 hours and seven phone calls before Kurian went to see her after she was readmitted). Four days after giving birth she died. Kurian is still practicing medicine.

I entered his name into docinfo.org. There’s an “Action” category that showed an action had been taken against him in California (underlined). I clicked on California, and it took me to the California State Medical Board website, but I couldn’t find any more information. At least that “Action" note was a clue that something was amiss. Better than nothing, I guess. 

For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.