All Those Texas Doctors..

There's been lots of hullabaloo over the rush of doctors heading to Texas to open up shop, thanks to the state's draconian medical malpractice "reform" of 2003. That Texas residents have to rely solely on the Texas Medical Board to protect them from out-of-state butchers and drug-addicts looking for safe haven is rather frightening, given how poorly it's done the job in the past.

The medical board has a huge backlog of license applications waiting for background checks. The board's background checks aren't exactly rigorous, though, as the board relies almost solely on self-reporting by the docs. That's how Dr. Nilon Tallant ended up treating Texas lawmakers as a volunteer "doctor of the day" in the state capitol last month, even though he had pleaded guilty to a felony charge after having sex with a 17-year-old patient in 1996. Tallant was a registered sex offender who'd lost his medical license for a few years, but Texas state legislators honored him as an upstanding member of the community. You can watch the TV expose on Dr. Tallant here. As the consumer group Texas Watch observed, if state legislators can't avoid bad doctors, how can average consumers?