Special Reports

Dangerous Doctors

CHICAGO (CBS 2) ― The Illinois Department of Professional Regulations issues licenses and disciplines health care professionals. The mission is to protect the public from dangerous doctors.

But the CBS 2 Investigators found the agency has been understaffed and overwhelmed for years. Pam Zekman reports on the devastating impact on patients.

There was unnecessary surgery performed by an eye doctor, a podiatrist, and most recently a general surgeon. They left patients with bad vision, crippled and disfigured. Some died.

Now there's a dentist who promised patients a lifetime of smiles but left them with a mouthful of misery.

This morning the dentist's former patients picketed the Department of Professional Regulation.

"If they're not going to enforce and shut these bad doctors down, they're part of the problem," said patient Gloria Smith.

A problem with the state's medical board disciplining dangerous doctors has been documented by a medical watchdog group for the last eight years.

"As long as the Illinois medical board continues being among the ten worst in the country, the people in Illinois are going to be inadequately protected from those doctors," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe with Public Citizen.

We reviewed the 47 medical licenses revoked or suspended last year. We found most resulted from investigations done by other states, other agencies, or criminal convictions. In other words they required little or no work by DPR.

Even when the state does act, sources say it takes far too long.

Take the case of Fred Weiner, an Orland Park dentist. State charges against him go back to 1999 but were stalled for years.

Not until late 2003 did the state suspend his license calling his treatments an "immediate danger to the public."

"His license should be revoked," Gloria Smith said.

Instead his license was suspended for just two months. Without admitting any guilt, Weiner agreed to take continuing education courses and pay a $12,000 fine.

"It's a joke, a joke," Smith said.

It is a bad joke to patients, who paid for crowns but only got the implants to hold them.

"They're in crooked," said patient Mary Clark.

They never got refunds for work that has to be redone or was not done.

"I've lost $13,500 dollars and now have to pay an additional $7,000," Clark said.

Former employees say DPR just doesn't have enough investigators and attorneys to properly handle the thousands of complaints it gets each year.

For example, department attorneys each handle up to a 170 complaints at a time, a staggering case load.

So what's the state doing about it.?

"We're going to focus our resources and we are going to evaluate the needs," said acting DPR Director Daniel Bluthardt.

"You don't know what you need?" Pam Zekman asked. That ended our interview.

"I've got to go," Bluthardt said.

"We're dealing with people's health and welfare. Their lives could be at risk if you can't act quickly enough or thoroughly enough," Zekman said.

Bluthardt did not answer, but his boss was more receptive to the same questions.

"I'm troubled and moved and passionately moved to do something about it," said Fernando Grillo, secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation. "Will we have challenges? Yes, there are always challenges when you try to change a culture."

Weiner's license is now suspended again at least until July because he failed to pay his fine. Weiner's attorney says he'll sue to get Weiner's license back, saying the state action was improper and the complaints were frivolous. He said there is no doubt Weiner made some mistakes, but he is not a bad dentist.

Weiner declined an on-camera interview.

With the state budget crunch, could they really afford the staff they need?

If they increased doctors licensing fees to equal what attorneys pay to support their disciplinary board, the state would have an additional $6.5 million.

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