Who’s Judging Our Doctors?
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The Texas Medical Board has spent nearly two years coming after a Houston doctor. Now they face growing questions about exactly who’s doing the judging.
“This is not about patient safety. This is weaponizing the medical board to silence me to silence other doctors,” said Mary Bowden.
Dr Mary Bowden has never been sued for medical malpractice, but you can’t say the same for a number of the Texas medical board members who want to punish her for medical opinions. For trying to help a sick covid patient.
“They won’t stop coming after me,” said Bowden.
Sharif Zaafran is the vice chairman of the governing board of us anesthesia partners.
Last year they were sued by the federal government, the Federal Trade Commission.
Accused of exploiting patients, driving up prices through allegedly illegal tactics.
The federal government claims “anesthesia services cost Texans tens of millions of dollars more each year than they did before USAP was created.”
But that’s not the only legal action that has drawn our attention in recent days.
Dr. Devinder Bhatia of Houston, a methodist surgeon, has been on the board more than a decade.
And while on the board he was sued in June of 2020 for assault, the allegations that he grabbed, hit, and shoved a nurse in the operating room.
That he brought a hot cup of coffee into the operating room when the patient was already unconscious.
The lawsuit was settled but we’re told there was video and audio of the incident. Boy, I’d love to see it.
How did the medical board treat one of its own?
Bhatia had to pay 500 dollars to take 12 hours of continuing education, it’s what’s called a remedial plan.
Basically, no discipline at all and it wasn’t his first brush with trouble.
Back in 2014, Bhatia did not report on his license renewal application that he was under investigation after his resignation from two hospitals.
Two years ago, Austin TV station KXAN documented political contributions from the folks who got on the medical board.
“Many of the people on the medical board are simply not qualified to be there,” said Steve Mitby.
One of the doctors on the board is Satish Nayak, back in March of 2021 there was a formal complaint he didn’t keep adequate medical records for multiple patients.
For punishment he had to complete 8 hours of continuing education on good record keeping.
In recent months, we’ve questioned the medical board; 29 patients complaining about the same doctor accused of physically endangering patients. The board did nothing about that.
Yet the Texas Medical Board is spending who knows how much taxpayer money to go after Dr. Mary Bowden for her covid comments.
And she’s not backing down.
Wayne Dolcefino asked, “you think you’ve been proven right?”
Dr. Bowden replied, “we’re getting there. I mean I just sued the FDA and won that lawsuit.”
During the height of the COVID drama the FDA had tweeted this about ivermectin.
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously y’all stop it,” read the post.
“The FDA had to take down all that misinformation that they put out there on social media, but I still have trouble getting pharmacists to dispense ivermectin strangely enough,” said Dr. Bowden.
Her lawsuit against methodist was not as successful, but Dr. Bowden is not shying away from her critique of the hospital.
“Methodist has egg on its face because they stood squarely behind the FDA and Anthony Fauci,” said Mitby.
So, she fights. She is raising money for her legal fund on give-send-go, 40000 so far. But when you fight the state, it takes a lot more than that
“I want my name cleared. It’s very important to me, especially after what happened,” expressed Bowden.
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