Doctors got off lighter in UCLA snooping case

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-ucla12apr12,0,3134540.story

Well, I certainly will:

1) Physicians, as a group, are much more expensive to recruit and retain than other staff members. In the same respect, I doubt that any of the 18 staff members who "resigned, retired or were dismissed" were senior staff with previously clean records. A good, experienced nurse is often harder to come by than a physician.

2) Unless the physicians are employees of the hospital, the hospital does not have the authority to directly discipline the physician, as the article notes.

3) Most physicians provide "coverage" for each other on nights, weekends, holidays, etc. Many times the computer does not recognize these coverage groups. On the weekends I routinely access medical records and the computer warns me I "am not a treating physician", even though I am providing care to the patient, writing orders, etc.

4) Many time pediatricians will access the medical records of the mother, again the computer warns us we are not "treating physicians", to help with the care of the newborn.

Considering there were 53 violations but only 18 resignations I suspect that some of them had to do with number 3 above, as other health care professionals will cover for each other as well. But you can bet 1 and 2 had a BIG part to play.

But again, all speculation.