In an unusual move towards openness, the North Carolina Medical Board recently decided that doctors should be required to tell their patients of their practice history. North Carolina has been criticized over the past few years for failing to protect its residents from habitually negligent doctors. The Board now requires its 35,000 physicians practicing or licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina to submit medical malpractice claims as well as criminal activity for publication. Consumers can go to www.ncmedboard.org and view malpractice payments, misdemeanor and felony convictions, hospital suspensions and even discipline by medical boards in other states. While a national database of malpractice payments has long existed, the public in general has not had access to the information stored there.
This new website is an extremely helpful tool for patients looking for a new doctor and also for those waiting to check the repot card, in a sense, of his/her current doctor. Careless doctors, at least in North Carolina, now have to take responsibility for their actions.
As St. Louis medical malpractice and injury lawyers, we believe that each state should have a law similar to this.