Committee on Health ProfessionalsAt the October 30, 2012 meeting, the Executive Committee voted to have the committee revert to its prior form of “two” committees focusing on 1) “Health Professionals” and more general Health Law issues and regulatory matters and 2) “Professional Discipline” which will focus on investigations and prosecutions of health professionals by OPMC and OPD (licensees under Title 8 of the Education Law). We are planning a breakfast meeting for the January Annual Meeting, with invited guests from the NY State DOH Office of Professional Discipline (OPMC), as we have done in past years. We are also inviting a representative from the Education Department Office of Professional Discipline (OPD). The goal is to discuss issues of mutual concern. We are working on an “e-pamphlet” to provide a user- friendly guide to OPMC for attorneys, physicians and physician assistants and specialist assistants (who are subject to OPMC’s jurisdiction). We hope to then do a similar pamphlet for OPD for the other “Title 8” professionals who would come under OPD’s jurisdiction. An e-pamphlet affords information and links to other websites. We will present a draft at the January meeting (after it is circulated to the committee for editing). This past year, we tried to arrange a meeting in Buffalo with OPMC and the Erie County Medical Society (through the efforts of committee member Lisa McDougall and colleagues in Buffalo), however the DOH essentially “froze” travel allotments, and with apologies, the Exec. Secretary of the State Board for Professional Misconduct (BPMC), Dr. Katherine Hawkins, was not able to participate, though she was willing to. Therefore we tabled that plan, and Dr. Hawkins indicated she would happily come to a meeting in NYC (as she has done previously with OPMC lawyers), and would also do so in Albany later in the year (especially if the travel restriction remains in effect, precluding a Western NY meeting). Committee Chair |