Partner in practice that serves Greene County Medical Center
Dr Josh A. Smith, DO, 48, of Carroll, a partner in Western Iowa Surgery, reached a settlement agreement Feb. 5 with the Iowa Board of Medicine, after claims that he “failed to provide appropriate surgical care.”
Western Iowa Surgery has been the provider of general surgical services at Greene County Medical Center since 2007. Dr Marc Miller, another partner in Western Iowa Surgery, is the primary surgeon at Greene County Medical Center, with Smith and the third partner, Dr Ronald Cheney, covering on-call as needed.
None of the nine surgeries involved in the complaint against Smith was done at Greene County Medical Center. Those surgeries were performed in Carroll, Manning, Ida Grove and Sac City. Eight of them were laparoscopic procedures. Smith was admonished by the Iowa Board of Medicine primarily for not identifying and treating injuries his patients suffered during surgery. None of the procedures questioned resulted in the death of the patient.
Medical center CEO Carl Behne has said that the medical center is aware of the Board of Medicine’s actions toward Smith, and that he is confident Smith will follow the board’s requirements.
Smith’s work will for the next five years be monitored by another surgeon who will provide written reports quarterly to the Board of Medicine.
Smith completed a comprehensive clinical competency evaluation at the Center for Personalized Education for Physicians in Colorado in June. The evaluators found that Smith’s surgical knowledge was “good, with a few gaps.” “While the overall quality of care in the patient charts reviewed was acceptable in the majority of cases, there were several cases in which the consultants disagreed with his decision-making, two of which were laparoscopic cases,” the settlement agreement reports from the evaluation.
Smith must also pay a civil penalty of $5,000. Smith was warned that “engaging in professional incompetency in the future may result in further disciplinary action, including suspension or revocation of his Iowa medical license.”
