Born in India in 1953.  Received MD from New Jersey Medical School, Newark in 1985. Finished ob-gyn residency from Temple University, Philadelphia in 1989.  Started practice at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte in 1990.  Suspended from hospital on September 1, 1995 after a secretive peer review in which 24 charts were labeled problematic.  But was never given a chance to defend any charts whatsoever.  The Medical Board of North Carolina investigated the 24 charts and said that standard of care was met.  Lawsuit against the hospital in federal court is still in litigation.

For a long time, the medical establishment has argued that the doctors can only review each other with honesty and candor if such reviews are protected from the public eye. Most states have bought this argument in a gullible fashion and have enacted laws that protect these reviews from being publicly questioned for accuracy and effectiveness.

Politically powerful doctors can easily do unnecessary surgery or make serious medical errors. They simply get reviewed by their colleagues in an "understanding" manner. However, if you do not have the political clout but simply practice good medicine, the same secretive process is used to blackball and eliminate you.

Abuse of peer review is more prevalent than admitted by the medical establishment. It has serious adverse effects on public health but nobody is paying any attention to this problem. The Center for Peer Review Justice is one of the concerned organizations (www.PeerReview.org)

This situation needs to be addressed quickly and effectively in order to reduce medical errors, control malpractice costs and promote public health. This nation can not afford to pay 1.4 trillion dollars per year and still spiraling, medical price tag for long.

To read this entire article titled Cooking the Books? Trillion Dollar Cover-Up? Hospitals Call it Peer Review, go to www.DelMeyer.net/HMCPeerRev.htm.

To read other articles by Dr. Virmani, please go to www.DelMeyer.net/HMC2006.htm.