Ex-VA surgeon under scrutiny in deaths seeks N.D. license
A surgeon who gave up his Massachusetts medical license and is under investigation in a string of deaths at an Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital has applied for a medical license in North Dakota, that state's medical regulators confirmed Tuesday.
Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, 69, applied Aug. 1 for a license from the North Dakota State Board of Medical Examiners, said Duane Houdek, the board's executive secretary. The board has taken no action because the Bolivian-trained doctor's application was incomplete, Houdek said.
Veizaga-Mendez filed for the new license less than two weeks before he resigned from the VA hospital in Marion, Ill., in August. His departure from the VA came three days after a Kentucky man apparently bled to death after undergoing gallstone-removal surgery performed by Veizaga-Mendez.
Word that Veizaga-Mendez sought licensing in North Dakota was revealed in a letter Tuesday from Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama to Illinois' top medical regulator. The lawmakers are pressing for answers about Veizaga-Mendez's background and how he came to be hired by the Marion VA, about 120 miles from St. Louis.
Nine veterans -- all in some way linked to Veizaga-Mendez -- died in a six-month period ending in March, during which the hospital would have expected only two deaths, Durbin has said.
Even before he was hired at the VA, Veizaga-Mendez had made payouts in two malpractice suits in Massachusetts and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths.
The Marion hospital, which has 55 acute-care beds, suspended all surgeries shortly after Veizaga-Mendez's resignation. The deaths there involving Veizaga-Mendez are under investigation, and details have not been released.
Veizaga-Mendez, who surrendered his Massachusetts license in July 2006, has no listed telephone number in Illinois and Massachusetts and has been unreachable for comment.
His Illinois license remains valid pending a December hearing. But in their letter Tuesday, Durbin and Obama pressed Dean Martinez, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation's chief, to take immediate action against the doctor "to protect the health and safety of patients in Illinois during the course of this investigation."
That could come as early as Wednesday; the doctor's case is on the agenda of the state's Medical Disciplinary Board's meeting in Chicago.
Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation spokeswoman Susan Hofer declined to discuss Veizaga-Mendez's case Tuesday. But she said allegations against doctors can be resolved well before scheduled disciplinary hearings if the physician and state reach a settlement, which may include the doctor relinquishing his license.
While the December hearing will consider circumstances leading to Veizaga-Mendez's surrendering of his Massachusetts license, the Illinois disciplinary board could take immediate action on a license, perhaps suspending it, if state regulators field new complaints of substandard care by a patient's relative or the doctor's employer, Hofer said.
No such complaint had been submitted to the state as of Tuesday, she said.
"The law is very clear that, when it comes to a license, once granted, there has to be due process," Hofer said. "And due process requires us to demonstrate that the license must be removed immediately to prevent imminent danger."