Currently only the Board Members can arbitrarily determine what to pursue withan 'investigation' - and that is 'confidential.' Further most Members are 'grade B' physicians themselves; missing a difficult diagnosis1/4 to 1/3 times on their Internet reviews - not the best to determine care standards - physicians who make mistakes.Anyone with 'friends' on the State Medical Board of Ohio can get another physician's license suspended for 'personal' - for no one knows what is really behind most Medical Board sanctions, i.e. no law firm can figure out 'confidential' regardless of how much money is spent. Some cases take years and over$300-400,000 for the physician; meaning that it costs the State of Ohio about double that with Hearings, appeals, and 'finding' another case when one doesn't work. The 'confidential' evidence can be changed - as even the State Representatives admit (Trakas). No false case is ever dismissed forlack of evidence or late filings. The Ohio State Medical Board can change any procedural rule, or ruling,until the physician's money runs dry with legal roundabout. The Ohio Court of Appeals can never get the 'confidential' to hear a case for reforms; they can only throw a case out and remand it back.

Then the Board Membership is a closed club; once a Member is appointed, it takes an 'act ofGod' to get a Member to not be re-appointed. Every Member of the Ohio Senate Health Committee has to vote againsta gubernatorial choice,andthis never happens; majority does not rule here. Meanwhile,Governors keep making the same 'mistakes' over and over withBoard choices only from the Ohio State Medical Association elite. The Cleveland Clinic has not had a Member on the State Medical Board of Ohio in over20 years; huge groups of active physicians in Ohio have literally no representation on this Board currently.

One Board Member has been on the State Medical Board almost 20 years now - Dr. Anita Steinbergh - and she's not there for 'merit' as the perpetual DO token. [There are plenty of good-to-outstanding DOs in Ohio who could merit a term.] But it would help if you could speakwith her,as one woman-physician to another woman-physician should be able to discuss in 2011,about medical diagnosis in women patients. It would help if she understood the missed diagnoses, such as thyroiditis or vitamin D insufficiency,that plague women patientsover and over in Ohio. Males simply don't get thyroid or vitamin D problems. The current Medical Board President is a male PODIATRIST.

Every other state has done away with this antediluvian, arbitrary, and ?reign of terror' confidential physician complaint system and made changes in how cases are conducted, along with a third non-punitive 'pathway' to improve medical care standards that are a source of dispute for physicians. About 40+ otherstateshave some form of medical mistake laws -- so that when patients, or physicians, facethe medical mistakes of a physician, or Medical Board --there is a timely'out.'

Currently the State Medical Board of Ohio has no 'path' to correct a mistaken suspension - no way toefficiently get a physician back without pages of ridiculous conditions (when the physician did not make the mistake). The 'goes' at a physician are unlimited; there is no double, triple or 'end'to the jeopardy.It is an outrageous cost to the state whenprofessional lives and careers are derailed for politics -when 'friends' can take a colleague's license for 'not going along'- and there is no oversight or review in Ohio of the Medical Board. The Governor literally does not know what is going on.

Most other states have a path to RESTORE a medical license after a Board mistake; and most states are liable for the re-certification, re-licensure, and the re-education courses required for this return-to-function. No one is asking for Ohio to pay for this, just tocorrect the false cases and make some reforms - to allow a stack of physicians their livesback before another 4 years.

?Confidential' complaint systems are a ?brain drain,' a waste of time & taxpayer administrative monies, and a modern day?trial by fire' that doesn't exist in any other part of the Ohio Board system. Brad Reynolds Constituent Affairs will not be able to get the answers even how much one of these cases has cost Ohio over the last decade or two. The only person with the answers is Rick Whitehouse, andit's difficult for anyone to get him on the phone with the ancillary ?take the blame' staff that surrounds his office.

It was estimated by then Ohio Speaker Larry Householder's office in 2003, that there were so many ?false' physician disciplines, suspensions, and actions, that opening up these files would paralyze the State of Ohio government with justified legal cases for professional liability &damages. And that was in 2003. You can't win a case with the State Medical Board of Ohio unless you know what the accusations are and who signed the complaint. So Medical Board cases can go on for decades with certain ?favored' law firms able to get a step forward; a step that goes back if you stop the retainer. It's a game with preferred 'arrangements' between certain legal firms and certain Board Members.

Since2003, Speakers Husted and Budish have refused to address the administrative problems at a Medical Board that functions on hearsay, innuendo, and misinformation none of which can be corrected if the crucial complaint file is ?confidential.'What's on the Board's website, if you judge by one of these false cases, is about 99.9% exaggeration and fabrication the physician does exist -but you can't sue the State Medical Board of Ohio and expect to ever practice medicine again. And no one has that much money.

The worst case is a case of a woman physician who has had her medical license suspended for 18 years for objecting to the wrong orthopedic and medical care. [In Ohio, informed consent is not necessaryfor women physicians -we have no rights to object to the wrong care, or to choose the right care; our medical license is forfeit.] The woman MD's orthopedics either wanted to (1) wait until her wrist fractures ripened to ?excrescence;'(2) cast with ?experimental' casts; or (3) do surgeries with pins/plates that weren't recommended by anyone outside of Ohio.Then her blood work was lost for a decade as to why she was fracturing bones in her mid-30s. Almost 20 years later, the Medical Board is still ?looking for a case' to justify suspending her medical license for ?making too much' of ?boys being boys care.' That is the top of the stack -a Governor's dream case to change a whole Medical Board by showing some fraud and lack of ethics. [Earth to Governor Kasich: it will take more than an ethics directive to get ?ethics' at the State Medical Board of Ohio.]

Governor Kasich has been in office in Ohio for 20 days now when will he get Mr. Whitehouse to answer some questions or evento pick up his cellphone?Thebest bet is that it will take more than another 20 days.