The heart.org has the following news report about a Maryland doctor accused of overstenting:

Baltimore, MD – A malpractice lawyer is accusing Dr John Chung-Yee Wang (Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, MD), a member of the committee tasked with stopping improper stenting in Maryland, of improper stenting in his own practice [1].

The Baltimore Sun reports that medical malpractice attorney Jay Miller has filed complaints with the state health claims arbitration office against Wang. Miller alleges that Wang, Dr Mark Midei, and Dr Kourosh Mastali wrongfully stented patient John Bowers in 2005 and 2006, when the three interventionalists were partners in MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates, a practice that has since disbanded. Miller also charges that Wang overstated the extent of coronary disease in patient Lorie Skillman to justify implanting a stent (…)

As reported by heartwire, the Maryland Medical Board revoked Midei’s medical license after it determined he repeatedly violated the Medical Practice Act by implanting hundreds of unneeded stents while working at St Joseph Medical Center in Towson, MD. Midei is one of several high-profile cases of alleged overstenting in recent years.

Wang is part of the Technical Advisory Group on Oversight of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Services, a group of experts tasked by the Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) to develop recommendations for legislative changes that would improve oversight of coronary intervention labs in the state. The committee is set to report its findings at a public meeting of the health commission today. “The allegations could cast a shadow over the work of the advisory committee,” the Sun reports. Wang was nominated for the committee by the Maryland chapter of the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

We may recall another period of time when committees played a prominent role in regulating safety and security.

In 1793, Georges-Francois Danton was given the task of leading the French Committee of Public Safety to ensure application of the ideals of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.  In the months that followed, the committee prescribed treatment with the “National Razor” to thousands of individuals deemed to be a threat to the revolution.  The bulk of the offenders were initially identified from among the aristocracy and the clergy, but it soon became necessary to also purify the revolutionary ranks from the less ardent supporters of rhetoric.  Soon enough, Danton himself was condemned to the same end that had so many before him had met.

In a letter to the MHCC, SCAI and the Maryland chapter of the ACC criticize the committee’s recommendations for not going far enough [2]. “The draft recommendation to expand MHCC ‘oversight’ to CABG facilities is excessively vague. It is unclear what authority this would give the MHCC. . . Voluntary oversight provides no guarantee that all citizens in Maryland are afforded equal, high-quality healthcare. . . Over time, the risk is that the foundation of peer review weakens. Good hospitals have nothing to hide or fear (bad ones do).”

The ACC, the SCAI and countless committees, commissions, and task forces around the country are fervently working to ensure application of the modern medical ideals of Quality, Equality, and Appropriateness.

May the just God protect us all from the zeal coming out of utopian ideologies.