Although the State Medical Board is quick to acknowledge in its Sunset Review Report has known for a long time that consumers are “being injured by unlicensed individuals working out of garages, back office clinics, etc.,” it has only sporadically run a separate unit for dealing with the unlicensed practice of medicine.
That unit, the Office of Safe Medicine (OSM), was deemed successful between its creation in 2000 and its disbanding for budgetary reasons in 2003. It was revived in Southern California in 2009 but denied in Northern California. Funding disappeared in 2011/12, but reappeared the following year, as the board tried to cope with the case load and ever changing state fortunes.
Along with the funding came a little clearer picture of the unscrupulous, illegal and dangerous medical practices being performed in the stressed out world of health care. The six-member office sent 61 cases to prosecutors in the fiscal year ending in June, compared to 31 the year before.
But for the most part, the state is reactive, not proactive, in taking down people like Kathleen Ann Helms of Los Angeles. After receiving a complaint that she was representing herself as a Doctor of Naturopathy with offices in California and Oak Park, Illinois, the FBI and the OSM charged her with practicing medicine without a license and grand theft.
The board reported in August that Helms was accused of prescribing a treatment plan for a patient with Lyme disease that involved, intravenous infusion of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), injections of animal cells and taking vitamins. Helms allegedly charged the patient more than $30,000 and directed her to a clinic in Tijuana for the treatments.
According to the FBI, complications required three more trips to Tijuana and intensive treatment back in Helms’ office, including stem cell shots to the stomach, before the now-critically-ill patient was admitted to intensive care. She was hospitalized for six weeks before transfer to a nursing home and then assisted living.
The publication California Watch tells the story of a San Francisco man, Carlos Guzmangarza, who allegedly assumed the identity of a physician’s assistant who operated a dermatological clinic in town. Guzmangarza performed liposuction without an assistant and smoking a cigar, while the patient held the IV bag, according to court documents. He was arraigned in December 2011 and rearraigned in March on more than 17 felony charges related to a total of nine victims.
The OSM is a creature of the State Medical Board, which is one of dozens of entities within the Department of Consumer Affairs. The department is under the umbrella of the State and Consumer Services Agency (soon to be the newly-configured Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency).
–Ken Broder
To Learn More:
Medical Board Steps up Investigations of Fake Doctors (by Christina Jewett, California Watch)
Medical Board of California Investigation Leads to Arrest of Encinitas Woman for Practicing Medicine without a License (Medical Board of California)
Encinitas Woman Arrested on Charges of Practicing Medicine without a License (FBI)
Man Acting as Fake Doctor Faces 17 More Felony Charges; Two New Victims Added to the Complaint; 9 Total Victims (City and County of San Francisco District Attorney)
Sunset Review Report 2012, Volume I (Medical Board of California) (pdf)