A web of confidentiality, state politics and gag clauses conspired to conceal a malpractice case settled in 2005 by Dental Board of California President Dr. Suzanne McCormick, the Los Angeles Times‘ Michael Rothfeld found.
McCormick paid a 13-year-old boy’s family $95,000 after she mistakenly removed two permanent molars from the boy who was actually supposed to have his wisdom teeth taken out. McCormick was first appointed to the dental board post in 2006; the office of the governor reappointed her for a second four-year term in March.
The foundations for sweeping the malpractice suit under the rug were laid in 2005, when McCormick obtained a “gag clause” as part of the settlement. The clause prevented the boy’s lawyer from filing a complaint with the very dental board she would soon become a member of, and thus reduced her chances of being formally disciplined for the mistake.
Such gag clauses are illegal for medical doctors in California, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has twice vetoed attempts to extend the prohibition to other professions. The dental board itself reviewed the case, but after an outside consultant contacted McCormick (but not the victim or his family), decided no punishment was in order. Cases in which such punishment is not deemed necessary are kept confidential by the board.
Rothfeld’s sources call for greater freedom of information and transparency from such state boards and an end to the gag clauses that are used “to short-circuit the regulatory process that protects the public.”
