Bill 1377 North Dakota Legislative Session - Response |
| From:
Larry G. Martin [mailto:martin@minot.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 11:42 PM
To:
Brian Gale Larry Representative Klein, I write to you this evening to give you my story, in hopes that it will provoke you and your committee to act this session in finding a way to fix the terrible laws that were written to govern professional licensures in the State of North Dakota. While I understand that the licensure laws were written in an attempt to protect the great citizens of ND, they fall short of protecting the professionals. The intent was to provide a means of protecting the people of this State from providers that are less than competent, but what these laws are mostly used for are to run good professionals out of the State. Or at the very least, cause those that want to fight to protect one's good name, to be driven to bankruptcy if they dare try to fight false accusations against them. . I see that you are from Minot, so I am sure you are well aware of the long time battle with the two hospitals here. In sending this to you I run a fifty-fifty risk as to what side of the fence you may sit on, I hope no matter what facility you may side with that you take the time to listen to my concerns. My wife and I moved to Minot 7 years ago. My wife was recruited to teach Audiology at MSU. I came here and went to work with Medical Arts as an audiologist. I was there for a year and a half and decided I was unable to work with the ENT they brought in. I left and went to work with Trinity. They thought they had me on contract, when they found out they never had me sign a contract, they went forth in every way they could to make my life hell! This ENT called me at home on several occasions telling me what he was going to do. At one point he flat out said he was going to destroy my career. Within a few weeks of this threat I had charges written by the new Med Arts audiologist and signed by the clinic director and sent to both of my licensing boards. I sent the same data the Licensing boards had, to the presidents of my two National organizations, and asked each of them to write back to me and tell me what I had done that the ND audiology board would have the right to come after me. In doing this I put myself at risk of losing my National certification and risking never being able to call myself an audiologist again. Neither of these PhD audiologists knew the other had the information and both of them independently of each other wrote to both ND boards and chastised them for even considering a case against me. One went so far as saying "this looked like a witch hunt and Mr. Martin was the hunted. The State assistant attorney general handling the case responded to both of them saying I would have my experts and the State would have theirs! We went to trial, the State took five and one half days to try to make charges on me stick (they kept changing every day as we defended what they tried to suggest was wrong in my care, we had one and one half days to defend against them. In the end the Law Judge ruled in my favor. The board (acting again on this poor piece of legislation currently in place) threw out the Law judges decision and demanded total revocation of my license. This sent me back to court to seek a temporary stay, allowing me to practice until a final ruling was made as to the State's position of my revocation. After another year and a half, and more attorney fees the board was finally unable to perform what the appeals court judge had asked of them and he threw this case out of court. In the end I win by default. I won by default, but I also lose by default. This little skirmish with my licensing boards cost me all of my savings. I have a bank loan for $75,000.00 and owe another $50,000.00 additionally to the law firm that has handled this case. At what I am able to make, it will take me at least six to seven years using all of my wages, to pay this off! For what? To protect the citizens of North Dakota from me? Or could it be a way of the competition in our community to get rid of some one they did not want to see practicing against them? The speech & audiology board of ND, consists of two audiologists, two speech pathologists, a hearing aid dealer, an ENT, and a member from the community At the time the board met and decided to press charges against me, the chair was a masters level audiologist who worked under my wife at the university. He decided that there would be a conflict of interest and resigned himself from taking part in this case. This left only one audiologist to tell the rest of the board, just what it was that I had done so wrong that I should have them come after me in an attempt to take my license to practice in ND. This audiologist at the time was contracted by Med Arts to provide audiology services until the new one they hired could be licensed in ND. He was also my across the street competition here in Minot. He apparently did not feel there was a conflict of interest for him to stay on. Now some years later (5) the director of Med Arts has left, the ENT has left and the chair of the board that pressed these charges has left. An interesting note, the ENT and this audiologist are in practice together in another State, I am sure there was no conflict of interest going on here! I could make this a lot longer and tell you all of the right out nasty things that were said about me, about my wife and about our Faith, throughout this ordeal, but I will stop with the history and tell you in my words where I see the problem, and what I would like to see fixed about the professional licensing boards here in North Dakota. The problem that has occurred in my case and I have seen this replicated in several State boards, is there is not an organized way of putting people on the boards. Oh everyone will tell you that they are appointed by the Governor. Let me tell you he has no clue who is on these boards, all that is done is the boards send them the name of the person they want on and then he signs the order. There is no way of him knowing if the person has been on the board for 20 years or not. With the boards like mine where there are just a handful of audiologists in our profession practicing in ND, it is far to easy to form a "good O boys club" which continues to put another good o boys name into the Governor for his signature. Thus leaving out someone that might not agree with the way the "boys" are running things. It also lends way to have dishonesty run amuck in the State licensing boards. We need to reorganize the entire system to make it not be a tool for the unethical, to weed their completion out of the State or out of business. In my case the biggest problem comes in the structure of those on the board. I provided diagnostic test procedures that have never been done in North Dakota before. Of all of those on the board or in the entire State for that matter there was no one that had my experience to interpret my data. The boards answer to this was, they just would not use this data and charge that I had not done a procedure that the rest of the ND audiologists would have used, therefore I was not practicing proper audiology services. Because they did not have my training, I was by law supposed to lower my educational standards down to theirs and therefore I was guilty! You can not expect to have a board of professionals judge another professional, if they themselves do not have the training to judge them. No one told my board this! In addition, when one audiologist resigned from hearing this case it only left one audiologist on the entire board. NONE, let me repeat this, NONE of the others on my board have the proper credentials to make judgment whether I had provided proper treatment or not! Two PhD, Nationally recognized researchers and presidents of our National organizations, were emphatic that I had done nothing wrong, were over ruled by a masters level audiologist who happened to be my competition working with the clinic and ENT doctor who filed the charges against me. His interpretation of the findings were far different than every "true expert" that we brought into the court. It was his opinion, that the rest of the board of "professionals" took, not the word of Nationally recognized PhD audiologists. We can not have boards made up of professionals that are not skilled enough and knowledgeable of current practices, judging someone who is. I believe strongly that the State will be found libel some day for allowing this behavior to happen. We must make changes NOW! What can be done? This is a question that even I have a hard time struggling with! After going through what I have been through, I would think I would have a fix, but I do not. Here are some thoughts: 1) put all boards on warning that changes are in the works! 2) form a body of mixed professionals hand selected for their trustworthiness, to act as a pre-hearing committee, to determine if a board has a legitimate reason to press charges against some professional. This would give the provider a "safe" environment to present his side of the story. Allow the professional to present out side the presence of his board, thus no information presented from either side can be used against the other. this board would be allowed to tell the board not to waste the States money. This committee could be used to have professionals bring problems back to if the boards are going beyond their power. 3) Look at having a large board that over sees several professional licenses. Force the new boards to use current literature to determine if work is within standards or not. 4) The medical schools require 70% scores to be considered a competent doctor, why does our society believe we have to be 100%? There are no other professions in this country that require 100% accuracy. Maybe an innovative system could be looked at that determined the degree of error of a provider. Was he only 90% successful, is the error with in the expected norm of success? 5) find proper punishment for those compactors who are hiding behind these written laws. I know that David Danielson penned a large number of complaints against doctors that left Medical Arts. Do not allow these people to use the law to prevent local competition! 6) there must be a better way to find settlement then make everyone spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach agreement. The problem now is even after all of the fight there is never agreement! 6) there should be a "red flag" program to investigate why a board has to take five years prosecuting a professional. Sir, I do not have a good answer for your committee, for a fix to this problem. I do present this letter to you stating that you have a major problem with these boards, that require full attention and a solution to follow! I will volunteer my services to sit on any committee, should you choose to try and come up with a better way of doing things. Please do not leave things the way they are now, it will only give a message to those that are abusing the system, that it is open season to continue business as usual in North Dakota. I know this is long, but I hope I have made my message clear for you. Sincerely
Dr. Larry G. Martin PS: Karen Krebsbach is well aware of my situation, please feel free to talk to her about my letter to you. CC: Members of your committee, Brian Gale , and Karen Krebsbach |
E Mail you own comments to all members: <gkeiser@state.nd.us> |