The Daily Toreador - Student Newspaper of Texas Tech

Issue date: 8/1/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Ruben Castillo

A democratic approach to medicine came to Lubbock on Tuesday evening.

The Texas Medical Board held a Town Hall in the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center to give doctors and the public a chance to voice their input about regulation of the medical profession.

Eight medical professionals from Lubbock convened to discuss problems facing the medical field and to offer suggestions to members Texas Medical Board, the governing body in charge of licensing and evaluating Texas's doctors.

Mari Robinson, director of enforcement of the Texas Medical Board, said the board recently has seen a significant increase in the amount of complaints that are being filed by both patients and doctors, and they are trying to improve upon their operations.

"We're trying to give out information," she said. "We're trying to hear people's concerns, answer their questions and just really develop better communications with our licensees and the community. That's the point."

Robinson said everything discussed was written down and will be put on the Texas Medical Board's Web site.

The issues discussed pertained to a wide range of topics, from malpractice lawsuits to the processing of paperwork.

"We're going to put all of this stuff together into a report at the end of the summer," Robinson said. "We're going to talk about what improvements and suggestions and changes can be made from that final report."

This meeting was one of 13 that the Texas Medical Board is hosting across the state, Robinson said. Members of the board are traveling to cities all across Texas to learn more about the issues and concerns people have with the medical field.

Though Lubbock is the seventh largest city on the board's tour, it had the smallest turnout of any city they have been to thus far, she said.

"This was the smallest turnout we've had in any city," Robinson said. "We had eight people here tonight, and the lowest before this had been 12 in the other college town (College Station) we had been to."

In addition to the Town Hall meeting, the Texas Medical Board held a seminar Wednesday to assist people who recruit or credential physicians, said Jaime Garanflo, director of the customer affairs division of the Texas Medical Board.

"The seminar is designed to help those who assist or recruit physicians to come in and get licensed in Texas to help them learn about our process so they can make it faster," she said, "(which helps the board to) assist the physicians who are coming in the licenser process."

Most of the people who come to the seminars are credentialing staff from hospitals, graduate medical education staff and sometimes physicians themselves, Garanflo said.

"The more they know about what we do, the more they can help gather the correct information and make sure it's all put together in the right format," she said. "Because sometimes doctors just aren't the best at filling out the right forms."

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