Dr. Olson has a history of misleading the Legislative Session participants as you can see from the public documents included with this statement. In a decision by Judge Robert Brady after a hearing, he states in his Findings and Conclusions,
"relative to H.B. 1479, Dr. Aaron Olson appeared and testified, among other things, "the bill doesn’t change anything that is not currently being done." "…Dr. Olson specifically explained while most of the bill is merely housekeeping… it does contain a new definition of Podiatric Medicine."
"In view of Dr. Olson's implication in his prepared testimony…For that rule to have an effective date of December 1, 1991, the Board had to have begun the rulemaking process almost immediately after H.B. 1479 became law, and strongly suggests that if the moving parties behind the legislation were the same as those involved in the drafting and adoption of the administrative rule,
both the Medical Association and the legislature were not dealt with in good faith."
In 1997, attorney Joe Cichy testified on behalf of the North Dakota Podiatrists for S.B. 2060. During his testimony, he stated,
"The association, in a telephone survey, agreed to resist a fee increase that the Board is attempting to establish through the rulemaking process. The Association members had no prior notice regarding this bill…Finally; my understanding is that the sponsor was informed that this bill was merely a housekeeping bill. As you can see, it is considerably more than that."
Dr. Olson lists 21 Podiatrists practicing in North Dakota and 5 of those are practicing elsewhere. The state association does not even have a list of all of the Podiatrists who are licensed in North Dakota so they could be contacted to see if they wanted to be on the telephone conference call.
Dr. Olson states that he "represents" 4 Board members and has 9 letters of support. However he did not submit 9 letters of support.
He submitted 8 letters of support and another letter strongly opposing H.B. 1377 from Dr. Cherian Mathew.
THERE IS DRAMATIC EVIDENCE THAT OLSON AND OTHER BOARD MEMBERS USED OUTRAGEOUS MISINFORMATION TO GET
PODIATRISTS TO AGREE WITH 1377.
Dr. Olson says that he has spoken to all but 5 of the 21 Podiatrists. Why didn’t he speak to all 21? Why did he call them in the first place?
Why didn't Dr. Olson participate in the FORMAL STATE ASSOCIATION phone conference meeting? WHY DO YOU THINK THAT HE WOULD NOT FACE NOR DID HE WANT OTHERS TO FACE
KNOWLEDGEABLE OPPOSITION?
Dr. Olson state’s, "4 who have not sent letters have told me they believe Board should be solvent & pay bills. What does that have to do with supporting H.B. 1377?
How do we know for sure that Dr. Olson really spoke to anyone?
Dr. Olson also states," President of the state association (abstention) supports concept of
bill." What does it mean to support the concept? Does the president of the association know that Dr. Olson was going to say this to the Committee? Why didn’t the president put that in his letter to the committee?
Then he states, "18 Podiatrists support boards autonomy." What does that mean in regards to H.B. 1377? Dr. Olson is throwing around a lot of numbers but the fact is that the state association took a vote where there were 15 licensed Podiatrists present. No one knows what Dr. Olson told the people whom he received his letters from and we have
no proof that he talked to anyone else. Especially in light of Dr. Olson’s previous misleading testimony in 1991 and 1997,
his testimony on this bill should be taken very cautiously.
Another document included at this time is the first three pages of the analysis
of the five cases that I was disciplined for in the year 2000. Dr. Harold Vogler who has an international reputation as a foot and ankle surgeon has made multiple statements about the sloppiness of the investigation, inaccuracies and obvious and overwhelming conflicts of interest of local competitors.
The next document is from Dr. Steven Kilwein who reviewed 90 surgical cases and found nothing wrong with any of them.
The last document is a jury verdict from a malpractice case involving a patient who died from the treatment of Dr. Olson. The jury decided that Dr. Olson was 41% responsible for the patient’s death. The Board received a complaint from the patient’s daughter and within two months the Board decided that Dr. Olson had not done anything wrong.