“[E]ven their legal counsel snickered about a dead child’s case in a meeting.” – David Lubofsky

By David Lubofsky
Are our professional medical licensing boards incompetent or even racially biased on Guam, or just downright corrupt?
Does the Guam Board of Medical Examiners reach out to our most disadvantaged citizens and/or our minority brothers and sisters on Guam, such as the Micronesian community, to let them know their rights if they receive substandard or negligent medical care? Have they ever decided a complaint by a Guam minority medical consumer or patient of medical substandard care or medical negligence in favor of the minority complainant?
NO! NO! NO!
The Federation of State Medical Boards has clearly encouraged medical licensing boards across the country, including Guam, to reach out to medical consumer minorities in the community and the population in general so that people will know their rights as a medical consumer or patient. Not surprisingly, this has not happened on Guam. It’s been totally ignored by the Guam Board of Medical Examiners and especially by it’s public member, whose job it is to represent the public.
Racial bias may be institutionalized it appears on Guam within the medical board. Is the Guam Board of Medical Examiners, chaired by Dr Nathaniel Berg, and the Health Professional Licensing Office, administered by Zennia Pecina, racially biased or just appears racially biased in how they interact with Guam’s minorities or in how they handle complaints against licensed medical professionals?
Focusing on the most failed licensing board on Guam, in my opinion, the Guam Board of Medical Examiners, in the last five-and-a-half years they have had more than 60 complaints filed against Guam doctors for substandard or negligent medical care. The complaints, including sexual misconduct, death of a child where two of the doctors involved also signed off on a wrongful death settlement and other medical consumer injuries including one patient that had surgery in part based on another patients medical file were never resolved in any patient’s favor.
The Guam Board of Medical Examiners has made it so that disadvantaged minorities on Guam, as well as the rest of us have almost no avenue or recourse to bring medical complaints except to the same biased board. The board has fought, with Dr. Berg leading the charge, to keep laws in place which leave medical consumers with few if any options to adjudicate medical negligence claims. For the most economically disadvantaged there are no other options. There is no place in the country which has stricter anti-medical consumer accountability laws than Guam, in part due to the advocacy of Dr. Berg and the Guam Board of Medical Examiners’ members. The Medical Board, supported by the HPLO, have gone out of their way to protect these doctors involved with complaints, including dropping complaints without notifying the patients. Actually, Dr. Berg has been quoted as stating doctors need to be protected during their May 2024 meeting, conveniently forgetting that their role and mission is to protect the community from substandard medical care.
A Guam surgeon made a significant error during surgery and allegedly, according to a Guam Board of Nurse Examiners meeting, made the operating room nurses change official surgical records so the mistake would be covered up, ahhh not noticed. Nothing happened to him as expected. Another doctor had six patients make complaints about sexual misconduct against him, but again the board seemingly dropped the cases. Add those to the 60-plus complaints by patients on Guam against doctors with not one doctor being disciplined. It’s statistically impossible and defies national averages.
I have watched or listened to every Guam Board of Medical Examiners meeting over the last five years, easily more than any board member, witnessing how they handle medical complaints, not to mention being privy to the licensing of Guam doctors. I have spoken to frustrated and upset victims who have filed complaints with the Board of Medical Examiners to no avail. I have been to the oversight hearings at the Guam legislature and gave testimony more than once. It’s an incredible systemically biased board that in my opinion sees complainants as a nuisance, even their legal counsel snickered about a dead child’s case in a meeting. Another member, made jokes about required ethics training for the Board. They often try to dismiss serious investigations from the get-go.
As you may know, I have also filed complaints in the death of my son Asher to no avail even though two of the doctors signed off on a wrongful death lawsuit settlement and the Feds under [the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, (CMS)] impartially investigated with a damning report. In one case, the Guam Board of Medical Examiners has been sitting on an off island impartial investigation report paid for with tax money for three years which agreed with our complaint request and made similar recommendations. The board refuses to act on it, again for three years. So much for protecting the public vs. protecting the few in the medical community.
Then it happened, like clockwork, a Black doctor is accused of sexual misconduct and the Board and HPLO get all concerned and serious. They spend more time on the complaint than any other case out of the 60, including our case with the off island impartial investigation report. I’m not commenting on the veracity of the complaint or the allegations against the doctor, nor guilt or not, but I’m questioning why this doctor is apparently investigated more aggressively so than the other 60 plus cases?It’s my opinion and that of others that the Guam Board of Medical Examiners and the HPLO have been more aggressive towards this doctor as he is an outsider, independent thinker and a culturally diverse person as compared to all other complaints of doctors that are from or are on Guam who had complaints filed against them. Again, this isn’t meant as a comment on the merits of the complaint, but the differences in how the Board and HPLO investigates one individual compared to 60 others.
The Guam Board of Medical Examiners, in my opinion, is also a key factor in the demise of Medical care on Guam supporting significantly the lack of medical accountability while licensing doctors with histories of medical negligence or malpractice to work on Guam.
Some of these doctors have then worked on Guam with similar allegations of substandard or negligent care made against them by Guam patients.
Sadly, as most read this, they may think this doesn’t apply to them. I used to think the same way until the day I woke up and it did apply and I realized that I was alone.
If you are ever in this situation, you are not alone. Message me with any questions or for advice.
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David Lubofsky is a resident of Tamuning.
1 Comments
Andy
08/03/2024 at 3:21 PM
Dr. Mike Cruz is not Board Certified. He hasn’t been for more than 5 years. He did seek this at one point, but the fact that LLG’s right hand man doesn’t seek this level of certification is appalling. I’m deeply sorry for your loss Mr. Lubofsky. Your child and you should be playing at the beach and not calling attention to the very real and horrible outcomes at the hands of “doctors” on our fair island.
I hope Mike and other non-certified medical providers consider what that certification requires and why it’s important to maintain accreditation.
The medical mafia on Guam must be STOPPED.