Wisconsin Doctors Reprimanded, ‘Crooks and Liars’ Hardest Hit

With all the attention on the Occupy Wall Street protests lately, it’s easy to forget the other failed “populist” movement, in Wisconsin, earlier in the year. You remember. Democrats fled the State in order to avoid the inevitable passage of Governor Scott Walker’s budget repair bill which, coincidentally, has led to a reduction in school tax levies across the Wisconsin, among other benefits (aka a healthy budget).

In the early days of the protests teachers would skip school and join the hordes of people rallying to insist on raiding the State’s treasury rather than having public sector union members contribute less than then national average for their benefits and pensions. The only problem was that teachers were expressly forbidden to fail to show up for work (i.e. strike)… unless they were sick. Seeing that their comrades faced losing their jobs, some doctors from the University of Wisconsin – Madison decided they would write sick notes for them.

Fox News broke the story about the fake sick notes and as you would expect, the Leftist echo-chamber had a conniption. They were scrambling to find a way to discredit the report. That’s where CrooksandLiars.com blogger, Karoli, stepped in it. You see, according to the same person who thought there was only one Scott Baker in the country, the story about doctors writing fake sick notes for teachers illegally striking is not a real story because, well,  Andrew Breitbart.

So we’re clear on this, Christian Hartsock, the guy “interviewed” and also the guy who probably produced that first video is the same guy who helped out with the smears of ACORN and New Jersey teachers, and he works for Andrew Breitbart.

Breitbart has bragged about being at the protests in Wisconsin today. Americans for Prosperity is linked to the MacIver Institute. A Breitbart video smear guy is quoted in an article smearing teachers. Figure it out.

In other words, “Yes, my delusional Leftist friends, this Hartsock guy has a connection to Breitbart so he’s clearly lying about the doctors writing fake notes.” Karoli had it all figured out. Of course those doctors weren’t doing anything unethical. Of course teachers participating in a strike (which is illegal) can simply pretend to be sick – at the protest – and there’s nothing wrong with it. This is all just a bunch of right-wing noise.

Turns out the noise was coming from Karoli. Seven doctors were officially reprimanded for their participation in the Wisconsin protests. (via Madison.com)

The medical board voted 6-3 to approve the reprimands for six of the seven doctors from UW-Madison. The board voted 6-4 to reprimand the other doctor, from Dean Clinic. A board member from the university’s doctor group abstained from the first vote.

Two of the board members who voted no said they weren’t allowed to talk publicly about why.

The reprimands go on the doctors’ permanent records and will “result in a permanent and lifelong blemish on these physicians’ licenses,” said Patricia Epstein, a Madison attorney representing two of the doctors.

Dr. Sujatha Kailas, chair of the board, said in a news release that the board’s action “holds these physicians accountable for their very public actions.”

Along with the reprimands, the doctors will have to pay to take four hours of continuing education in medical record keeping, said Jeanette Lytle, an attorney for the licensing department, which investigated the doctors.

The state Department of Safety and Professional Services could have recommended harsher discipline, such as suspension of the doctors’ licenses.

In short, Karoli’s snooty dismissal of the initial report was 100% wrong. The doctors were, essentially, writing fake sick notes. According to the report, in order to issue those notes, the doctors were required to do way more than they did.

Lytle said state law “requires pertinent patient history, pertinent objective findings related to the examination and test results, assessment or diagnosis, and a plan of treatment for the patient.”

Basically, the notes were not backed up by real medical evaluations, proper procedure, and a follow up plan. They didn’t keep full records, either. All required by law. The notes were fake. The doctors got off easy. The next step should be to identify the teachers who submitted the fake sick notes so they can face disciplinary action for their illegal participation in a strike.

From a media perspective, the broader lesson here is that CrooksandLiars.com is aptly named – albeit ironically – and their blogger, Karoli, is a hack.