Letter to ProPublica in response to thanks for joining their Reporting Network.

ProPublica

Dear Amanda,

I'm glad you asked about ideas for projects ProPublica should undertake.

The subject of "sham peer review" or "bad faith peer review" of medical professionals is in dire need of attention from skilled investigative journalists like those at ProPublica.

I began Texas Medical Board Watch in 2006 because I suspected I was the victim of sham peer review by the Texas Medical Board.

Sham peer review, known alternatively as bad faith peer review, is difficult to identify for sure, because even we doctors can be fooled as to the degree of the sham. Imagine how difficult it is for a medical board staffed mostly by lawyers without any experience in the practice of medicine, a jury, reporters, or the public to learn the truth. Texas Medical Board Watch and Texas Phoenix 007 (other names I've assumed) have developed a network of whistleblowers, medical and otherwise, who have been retaliated against because we exposed public and private corruption.

My material is published in emails, on scribd, Texas Phoenix 007, Medscape (Medscape > Physician Connect > Discussions > Non-Clinical > Open Forum > Disruptive Physician, but not in the mainstream media. You can find a few slanderous press releases from the Texas Medical Board on their site.

Mike Volpe has written five pieces about me.

Craig Malisow of the Houston Press, I think, smelled a rat when he wrote his story. Hairballs impressed me, because, in spite of the fact that he did not interview me prior to publishing it, his take is just about 100% correct. I congratulated him on that, but have not been able to persuade him to explore the issues any further. I am convinced that he has no idea the significance of the story he is sitting on.

Just how significant is retaliation against physician whistleblowers? The mission of Texas Medical Board Watch states it:

... to monitor performance of the Texas Medical Board and assure that it fulfills the mission assigned it by the Texas Legislature: Protect the health of Texans

The Board often abuses its power. Until peer review is fair, healthcare reform will remain an elusive goal.

Some of the doctors I now network with consider ourselves to be experts in sham peer review. We have ideas for medical board reform which we believe can assure that peer review is fair. The backbone of such a system would be a requirement that all physicians participate in peer review, unpaid, for continuing medical education credit, as a condition of licensure.

I tried explaining this to the current Executive Director of the Texas Medical Board Mari Robinson, but she won't listen. I have other beefs with Robinson, including allegations against her of a pattern and practice of criminal activity.

On February 6, 2009, I testified before the whole medical board at its regularly scheduled meeting, during the time allotted for public testimony, for the ten minutes assigned to me, on "Open Government: The Uncomfortable Challenge".

For ten long minutes I told every board member and every staff person who attended the meeting details about "state and federal crimes of which I am personally aware that have been committed by Mari Robinson."

Immediately prior to my testimony, Joel Simon Hochman MD also testified for about ten minutes. He told the whole board of no less than eighteen anonymous frivolous complaints against him he had fought and won.

The person who possibly is the most forthright and honest member of the medical board, Tim Webb, hurried out while I walked to the microphone. Mr. Webb and I had communicated several times personally and he was quite aware of my issues with Ms Robinson. Although Mr. Webb is still listed on the website of the TMB as a member, he apparently did not attend the February board meeting. Has he resigned and left the state? A preliminary investigation shows an answering service and a website which lists three contact emails that all bounce.

Two weeks later, the board brazenly notified me that it intended to suspend my license.

Four weeks after that, on March 24, 2009, on an emergency basis, my license was suspended. Jill Wiggins, former Public Information Officer, sent a press release stating as much and that the TMB had determined me to be "mentally impaired" and my behavior was "dishonorable and disloyal".

Ms Wiggins does not seem to be on TMB staff any longer, as I cannot find any references to her on the TMB website for 2010. The new Public Information Officer is Leigh Hopper, 512-305-7018 or leigh.hopper@tmb.state.tx.us.

I am developing a theory about the real origin of our national healthcare crisis. It relates to the takeover of healthcare by corporate interests due to government-mandated unfair competition. The private practice of medicine is restrained by Sherman Anti-trust, but insurance is not. The "equation" is unbalanced and insurance has won.

I believe it began in 1944 when the United State Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act applied to insurance. The insurance industry was becoming a national force and its lobbyists persuaded Congress to pass McCarran-Ferguson in 1945. McCarran-Ferguson exempts insurance from anti-trust. It is this unfair economic advantage which has enabled insurance companies to take over the practice of medicine. Most industries can only dream about sharing confidential private data, but the insurance industry does it with relish on a daily basis.

This extraordinary imbalance of power enabled Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, for example, to place its boy, Fred Merian MD, as president of the Texas Medical Association; its boy, Doug Curran MD, was president of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians; its boy, Keith E Miller MD, was chairman of the Texas Medical Board Disciplinary Process Review Committee.

I was sham peer reviewed because I exposed the conflict of interest of Doug Curran and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Doug Curran bribed Keith Miller to get my medical license suspended.

How do I know? In a moment of unbridled arrogance, Doug Curran told me so.

Sincerely,

Shirley Pigott MD

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Amanda Michel wrote:

Hi,

Thank you for joining ProPublica's Reporting Network. We just finished ProPublica's Super Bowl Blitz, a two week effort to find out which members of Congress got tickets to the Super Bowl and how they got them. More than fifteen news organizations jumped aboard as collaborators, as did a bunch of journalists and other members of the Reporting Network. You can read the final story here and see the project's results here.

We'll notify you when we launch our next project. In the meantime, if you've got ideas for us to pursue, please send 'em my way.

Best,
Amanda Michel