I posted here a long time ago that I got some piss-poor medical treatment by a local LDS podiatrist. I went in and complained of "a possible neuroma" based on having had a neuroma once before. He promised to get rid of it with a series of alcohol shots through the top of my foot. They were painful indeed, and I was supposed to go through a series of 10. Each successive one was more painful than the one previous, and each one was performed by a medical assistant rather than by the doctor, as required by law. It also occurred to me eventually that I was the one who made the diagnosis, not him. So I complained to the state board, and they have gone back and forth between me and him over a period of about two years. Then last week on the local news here in Central WA they reported that the board had restricted the podiatrist's license,listing every detail of my complaint and all but citing me by name. I was happy, because the guy's a dick, he was inflicting more and more pain on me using a procedure that turns out to be very dodgy in the first place, and he was allowing untrained individuals to perform what actually qualifies as a medical procedure.

I also found out meanwhile that a couple of years ago he was suspected of Medicare fraud, and the FBI shut down his practice and confiscated his records. He only won it all back after he was found not guilty in court. (Had I known that at the time, I wouldn't have gone to him.) According to another doctor friend of mine, this guy is still believed to be perpetrating Medicare fraud. I was happy to do my little part to help reign in another dishonest guy who also a local LDS leader.

That sucks. His practice will be hurt big time for a long time. Did you get the problem corrected?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2011 03:37PM by iamagodu.

I'm a podiatrist in the UK and would agree that the practice of using alcohol injections to treat a neuroma is dodgy to say the least. Glad that you took action and reported him to the authorities getting his license restricted. Hope that you managed to get the problem sorted as well as weeding out the rat.

Plodder

It took four surgeries over ten years to fix so I could walk without pain. He told me I needed surgery to straighten my toes since I had worn pointy toe high heels. He said if I didn't get the surgery, I wouldn't be able to walk when I was old.

He operated on me in his office with my husband (not a medical professional) assisting. He wired bones together on top of my foot and broke other bones, ruining the weight-bearing ability of the foot. I was in agony when I awoke, so he gave me oral pain killers and sent me home. I was screaming in pain at home (and I have a high threshold, BTW, having had natural childbirth a time or two), so he came to the home and gave me a shot of demerol. Which caused a grand mal seizure and I ended up in the hospital. With total amnesia. Could not recognize my own husband.

The amnesia went away gradually over a week and they kept me hospitalized. I broke out in huge hives the size of saucers all over my body--plus I was in agony for the shit job he did wrecking my foot. It turned out there was a hematoma under the cast and he didn't even bother to look at it, just gave me a pain shot, which combined with the oral painkillers was too much.

Long story short, it took four surgeries and ten years to repair the damage and I could never sue him because he kept telling me it wasn't all the way healed until the two years statute of limitations had run out.

Now I actually am old and the foot he didn't touch is perfectly fine. The one he operated on is a mess and has plastic joints, hammer toes, the ball of the foot has relocated, etc.

Anagrammy

My wife, who is still very TBM, I think is worried about potential fallout to her name within the stake. I also was caught off-guard, since I had no idea whatever that this would be announced so publicly (on TV and in the local fish wrapper). And it's clearly about me, citing things in terms such as "an individual who complained..." I felt a bit strange about that. I had all but forgotten about my complaint since a lot of time had gone by.

At any rate, as I said above, the man is currently being re-investigated for Medicare fraud. He got off the hook last time because when he went to trial, his defending lawyer grilled these old people in their 70s and 80s up on the stand, and apparently many of them began to break down under his questioning and the jury couldn't trust their testimonies.

The doctor is not very old, somewhere in his 40s. He's good-looking and very buff from a lot of weigh-lifting and such. His son was just going on a mission when I first went to him. I never owned up to knowing anything about the church when he was busy telling me about Mormons.

I do have some numbness issues in my foot because of some damaged nerves from the alcohol injections. I suppose I could have raised a legal stink, but it would have been costly for me.

@Anagrammy: Such a painful story about your foot. My wife had a similar operation at Cottonwood Hospital, when that was still in operation. They had a great team, and her recovery was smooth and she's fine today. It's always so wrong when a doctor turns out to be a goof-ball, and none of us knows how to be prepared for that. I've had such good luck, otherwise. Fortunately, my senses got the better of me and I just walked out at the end of one of the painful sessions when the medical assistant hit some vein with the needle and blood was going all over the floor. It was alarming AND painful. This, no doubt, is why it's considered a "medical procedure" vice "shot."