Friday, June 24th, I spent 9 hours presenting a case to a panel of 8 people in the Virginia Board of Medicine that already had their minds made up. I don’t know why they even spent the time. It is a farce when the outcome is pre-determined. How do I know that? Because the testimony given by me and three other doctors proved beyond any doubt that the government charges were set up and false in one case, and the other case were purely human error in which no harm was done to any patient. A reprimand should be all that the error required. Instead, my license to practice medicine was suspended for 12 months.
Why should this be, you might ask? The reason behind the punishment being greater than the crime is that I treat pain in Southwest Virginia. In fact, I was the last pain management physician for the uninsured, self pay, Medicare or Medicaid patients. But did that even sway the panel? No. Patients not having the availability of treatment for their pain did not make a difference. Even the knowledge that several patients have declared suicidal ideation did not open their eyes. That makes the 11 members of the board that made this decision murderers.
What is the purpose of the Board of Medicine anyway? There is no statement to that effect. Historically medical boards and lawyer’s bars were to supervise these professions internally. In medicine, the underlying principle should be the welfare of the citizen being served by the physician. The Board should have at its top priority, what is in the best interest of the citizens of the state. So if a physician is guilty of sexual misconduct, alcoholism, drug addiction, improper medical treatment, botched surgery, etc, the board can remove them from the arena of patient care. Instead, now, the Board of Medicine would seem to be professional henchmen for carrying out whatever the Commonwealth’s attorneys want to do. Such has been the case with every contact I have had with the Board. This was born out with the Board meeting over my application for reinstatement. I did not get the reinstatement at the time. Instead, they made me jump through a bunch of unnecessary and expensive hoops. At the time my reinstatement was refused and I blew up, one of the Board administrators told me quietly, “Don’t worry, Dr. Cheek, you’ll get your license. We just have to cover our butt.” Cover their butt from what, or whom? It really doesn’t matter. It does show, however, that the Board of Medicine is a puppet organization, moving at the will of a corrupt, self-serving government with only one goal—limit the health care of the poor, working class, elderly and disabled in Virginia.
