Leaving public in the dark

As apologies go, it would be hard to rival the one widely attributed to the Incomparable Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.

It remains unclear whether it was after the 1990 incident in which the band was booed off the field at the University of Oregon for a skit in which a member cut a stuffed owl in half with a chainsaw, after the 1997 Notre Dame game during which the band made fun of the Irish Potato Famine, or after the mock marriage of assistant manager Tom Henney to five wives at midfield during halftime of the 2004 BYU game, that the band famously apologized "for offending anyone who we did not mean to offend."

It took some doing, but the Nevada State Board of Osteopathic Medicine appears to have done the Stanford kids one better.

As part of a settlement agreement resulting from an investigation into the doctor's injection practices at the Gastrointestinal Diagnostic Clinic on Maryland Parkway, the board announced Thursday it will require physician Scott Young to "admit that the syringe practices as described by the complainants ... would constitute unprofessional conduct ... and if such practices were committed ... he (Young) accepts responsibility for his actions."

So, in addition, to being required to "take a course" on sterile procedures, Dr. Young will be required to admit ... nothing.

The doctor might as well be required to stipulate that "it would constitute unprofessional conduct if I had caused the Great Plague of 1348."

Now, the board did face a problem. Although surveyors who visited the clinic reported Dr. Young admitted to them that he would change the needle but reuse the same syringe and vial in administering anesthetic to more than one patient -- a practice which could allow cross-contamination -- none of the surveyors actually witnessed this practice, one surveyor testifying "I wasn't positioned and I got interrupted where I could not see the whole process."

Dr. Young has since contended the surveyors simply misunderstood his summary of his typical procedure.

But one wonders just how hard the board was trying. Chairman Dr. Daniel Curtis recused himself from voting on the settlement, saying he was a former business associate of Dr. Young. Board member Scott Manthei also recused himself, saying he'd worked with Dr. Young recently.

It's a wonder the stenographer was able to stay on the job.

Certainly no one should see his ability to practice his profession placed in jeopardy based on inconclusive hearsay. But the allegation here was of a willful and systematic violation of standard sterile procedures, which can expose innocent patients to potentially fatal infections.

At the very least, the public should expect such boards to get to the bottom of what was really happening, and for any agreement to include a meaningful stipulation to those facts.

If there's no conclusive evidence that Dr. Young did wrong, he should have been exonerated. On the other hand, if the board believes he put patients at risk, then sending him to "take a class" -- whereupon he's authorized to go back to business as usual -- combines levels of impotence and cynicism so elevated as to call into question whether this bunch of back-slapping good old boys should exist, at all.