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The plight of a Newport News physician whose license was suspended by emergency order after the death of a chronically pain patient, is just one more look into how medical peer reviews and boards of medicines hesitate to discipline physicians known to further compromise their patients’ health – or worse, who have been directly responsible for their deaths.

The Newport News situation involving Dr. J. Howard Shegog, 65, is also one more example of how boards of medicine, hospitals and other medical establishments stick close picking and choosing how and when to cooperate with media inquiries surrounding physicians’ and hospital administrators’ horrifi c breaches of public trust.

Since the Virginia Times began publishing a series of articles earlier this year exposing the shortcomings of physicians at Southside Regional Medical Center and, more recently at John Randolph Medical Center, who are more led by power, greed and corruption than by a sincere well-being of their patients, other print media have slowly and guardedly jumped on the bandwagon reporting on serious allegations and breaches of trust within the realm of medicine.

In the case of Shegog other media reported this week that his career remains in limbo although the parents of the victim are upset over the vague ruling the Virginia Board of Medicine handed down this weekend. The board ruled that while Shegog’s license will remain suspended, he can apply for reinstatement in a matter of months. Meanwhile, a young, innocent patient is dead and all his parents can do is to continue to grieve.

According to a source familiar with situations at both SRMC and JRMC, “We have come to know of some other hospitals like SRMC and JRMC that have been involved in Medicaid and Medicare fraud and serious patient care problems.” The source said that in such instances, if those physicians were brought up on charges, they’d retaliate by bringing false allegations against their accusers that would be reported to the Board of Medicine.

The source said doctors would go so far as to use their political infl uence to sabotage the accusing physicians’ practices, despite the fact the physicians have good track records.

“But these hospitals (SRMC and JRMC) have physicians like doctors A. Dave; K. Dave; Jadhav; John Grizzard; Ross; Agada and many others, who had numbers of patients that died, even patients in their 30s. However, they’ve never been reported to the Board of Medicine. Why? Because the hospital administration and peer review are corrupt.

“Some of the patients’ deaths in these hospitals are much higher than the homicide rates in their localities. They’re using the Board of Medicine. Any doctor who wants to be honest and ethical (can forget it) because the board operates in a very blindfolded way, “ the source said.

The source said this newspaper challenges them to investigate corrupt doctors, as far as what the Virginia Times has exposed on them and how they’re still practicing in the state of Virginia.

The source also challenges the board to investigate SRMC and JRMC to see how they are accommodating corrupt physicians.

Said the source, “They know they’re involved in peer review fraud and federal fraud embezzling money from Medicaid and Medicare and private insurance.” The source added that not too long ago, an HCA hospital was fi ned for embezzling money from Medicaid and Medicare and that the hospital ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fi nes. “And, again they didn’t learn their lesson,” said the source.

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