Hospital faces deep problems

Julie Bell of The (Baltimore) Sun reviewed documents on the performance of Maryland General Hospital, finding that "from at least the mid-1990s until spring 2004, the hospital's board and a changing cast of top executives failed to act quickly as oversight systems designed to protect patients failed." Breakdowns at the hospital's laboratory in early 2004 scared away patients, but the paper reports that problems ran deeper than that. "Among the doctors who received and retained practicing privileges were an anesthesiologist who was asked to resign from his previous hospital after the death of a patient, and physicians who had been sued more than a dozen times, including a neurosurgeon who had been sued at least 19 times."