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Good Enough for Government Work

When officials at the Veterans Administration hospital in Iowa City, Iowa, hired neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider, they knew he had several malpractice claims against him — and that his medical license had been revoked in Wyoming. They hired him anyway because of the VA policy giving hospitals leeway to hire medical practitioners after “prior consideration of all relevant facts surrounding” revocations, and as long as they still had a license in at least one state. Multiple patients suffered long-term issues under his care, and there’s another problem: that policy is a violation of federal law. “The hiring of doctors who have had their medical licenses revoked in any state is already prohibited,” thirty members of the U.S. House of Representatives told the VA in a letter. After the violation was exposed in a USA Today investigative article, the VA moved to fire Schneider, but he resigned instead. VA Secretary David Shulkin ordered a rewrite of the policy, and a review to identify and remove other health care workers with revoked licenses. “It’s very clear to me that our job is to have the best quality doctors that we can provide to take care of veterans,” Shulkin said. “And that’s going to be our policy.” (MS/USA Today) ...Because before this it wasn’t clear that veterans deserved adequately licensed doctors.