“Haven’t I suffered enough?”
That’s what I think every time someone asks me if I’m going to write another blog post about convicted felon Annette Bosworth.
That’s also what Bosworth said to the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners yesterday as it wrapped up its hearing on whether to revoke her medical license for unprofessional conduct—i.e., for her conviction on twelve felony counts.
What I heard of the hearing boiled down rather predictably. The Board’s attorney, Craig Kennedy, made the simple case that “Her ethical violation, her commission of felonies disqualifies her from being able to practice with a medical license” under the definition of unprofessional conduct established by SDCL 36-4-30 (“The term, unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, as used in this chapter includes… (6) Conviction of any criminal offense of the grade of felony, any conviction of a criminal offense arising out of the practice of medicine or osteopathy, or one in connection with any criminal offense involving moral turpitude;…”).
Bosworth, evidently out of money to pay lawyers and thus representing herself, paraded a series of patients and other supporters to say that Bosworth is such a wonderful doctor and person that the law should not apply to her. “I’m a good doctor. I love what I do,” Bosworth said in her closing arguments. “Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Typical of her chronic, documented narcissism, Bosworth forgot that this hearing isn’t just about her. It’s also about patients, the public, and the medical profession as a whole in South Dakota. Kennedy said the medical board, in its obligation to patients, the public, and the profession, must revoke the medical license of a convicted felon. A felony, said Kennedy, is a sign of moral turpitude, a sign that an individual cannot be trusted. Disallowing an untrustworthy felon from practicing medicine in South Dakota protects the trust South Dakotans must have in all doctors to be not just competent but ethical.
Dr. John Whipple, the state board’s only witness, said he saw no sign that Bosworth was willing to take responsibility for her bad actions. On cross-examination, Bosworth asked Whipple what she could do to demonstrate that she does accept that responsibility. Relinquish your medical license, Whipple advised. Bosworth then proceeded to dismiss Whipple as a hired gun whose only allegiance is to his paycheck.
Whipple is right. By relinquishing her license, Bosworth would demonstrate that she recognizes her responsibility for her crimes. Beyond her personal story, relinquishing her license would show a respect for the integrity of her profession and the public trust in her entire profession.
We’ll learn in September whether the South Dakota medical board feels South Dakota has suffered enough from Annette Bosworth.
While I understand her fight to keep her ability to practice her profession, her apparently poor judgment has taken this out of her control. If she loses her ability to practice medicine, she’ll deserve it, if she keeps it, she’ll need to change her ways so that she doesn’t put herself in this situation again…
If you listen to the KSFY story Bosworth is all ready to place blame on someone else if she loses her license. And that’s the real story here. She plays the victim and that she is being persecuted.
I believe her friends aren’t helping much either.
My other question is has she cleared up the problems she had with the raffles? I haven’t heard anything on that for awhile.
In the end I really don’t care if she loses her license or not. I’m making the choice for myself and my family never to go to her as our doctor.
She has brought all this on herself.
“Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Did she really say that?! How perfectly narcissistic. How perfectly messed up. While I have sympathy for her mental illness, further enabling her is the worst thing for her. Narcissism thrives on victim hood.
i wonder if this prosecution was in part to take heat off rounds/fbi/us atty EB5 investigtion? simplistic i know, but w/o laser focus on complexity of EB5 SDGOP fraud, neither mercer nor cory were able to unearth enough to embarrass brenden johnson to dig beneath his own political expediency.
fellow dems, would it be fair to say neither brendan nor stephanie are tough enough for republicans in SD and nationally, or were there just inadequate facts?
with the criticism from npr yesterday about colo/wash state/ california’s failure to address environmental damage from the burgeoning pot industry, brenden’s law partner, former ND US Atty’s apparently under-considered plan to open up ND to rec-pot, as a cash-cow for their new law firm association, seems perhaps to be just another capitalization of Indian land for deep exploitation.
maybe this is overly cynical or premature. :(
maybe whiz-kid dan buresch can straighten me out with some good-ole horse sense/hi-tech shrewdness as he above, applied, to the boz!
I have no sympathy with Bosworth’s political nonsense, but I see no connection between her election misbehavior and her ability to be a doctor. Using licensing boards to punish for other behavior is being done in other areas. In Rapid City, I watched and heard dissatisfied consumers of roofing services, etc. trying to avoid paying bills by getting the contractor’s license suspended. That system needed a mediator in the system between parties and between parties and the board.
Abusing licensing boards for other purposes good or evil destroys the credibility of the licensing systems and is ripe for abuse..both favoritism and harassment under color of authority.
I see no connection between her admitting she erred in elections or other events and demonstrating penitence by giving up her license. This is a peculiar sort of mental gymnastics.
Maybe I’m wrong Douglas but I think the connection is poor judgement and what’s to stop her from using that poor judgement on a patient?
Boz and Haber should launch a civil suit against Joel Arends and the Rounds campaign for breach of contract then bankrupt the SDGOP for hiring her in the first place.
Clearly, she should be out of any kind of profession that requires judgement and in particular, judgments that involve the health of others. She has proven, beyond the shadow of doubt that she in incapable of knowing right from wrong, thereby endangering not only herself, but those she may treat. However, South Dakota has a nasty habit of hiring those that come from other places that have had medical trouble in the past, so why would we not expect them to look the other way on Boz? Here is another quack. http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2014/11/08/allegations-botched-surgeries-might-shift-law-sd/18749519/
jerry, she wears a squirrel on her head like Kristi Noem does.
leslie,
“with the criticism from npr yesterday about colo/wash state/ california’s failure to address environmental damage from the burgeoning pot industry, brenden’s law partner, former ND US Atty’s apparently under-considered plan to open up ND to rec-pot, as a cash-cow for their new law firm association, seems perhaps to be just another capitalization of Indian land for deep exploitation.”
Be careful with statements like that since our pro-pot friends will likely say that NPR story was funded by the police unions and prison industrial complex. Everything will be copasetic once this innocent plant is legalized. Besides according to the logic of one of our pro-pot friends we have no right talking about things unless we have tried them so that includes pot, LSD, crack, meth, and whatever else out there including huffing paint though that would get kind of messy on your face. lol
Back to the victimization of this poor country doctor.
Want to stop the meth industry in the chemical toilet? Distribute Adderall to users under Medicaid expansion.
Troy Jones his handlers bemoan birth control compounds inculcating South Dakota’s watersheds while in denial over BPA as a real source of spontaneous abortions and gender dysphoria yet their political party controls oversight: self-reliance or moral hazard?
Didn’t this same board, about three years ago, order Dr. Bosworth to receive psychological treatment for her narcissism?
Once again I ask has any other person in South Dakota ever been charged and convicted of falsely certifying that they personally witnessed the signing of an election petition? The Pierre Capital Journal editorial of July 6th has put more common sense on this issue that all the others put together.
Cory, when are you going to go after someone for cutting the tags of a mattress? They are there for a reason. Suppose cutting them off might cause a death and would that not be a felony?
If anybody wants the two party system to work in South Dakota we need to attack the corruption that runs wild!
The real subject of the hearing is the state medical board and its members. The state medical board and members are holding a public mirror up to themselves. Will they have standards? Do they mean all those fancy words, oaths, and doctrines? The board members did not put Bosworth is this place; she accomplished that all by herself. The board’s role is determining whether her judgment and apparent absence of taking responsibility poses an unreasonable risk to an uninformed public. Is there any amount of retraining, recertification that will change behavior, or change judgment, or change an apparent inability to accept responsibility for ones acts of commission or omission? It’s a pretty easy case.
Leslie, no, I see no connection between Bosworth and EB-5 heat. I started investigating Bosworth back in June 2013, more than four months before Richard Benda blew his guts and the EB-5 scandal wide open.
Deb, yes, Bosworth said exactly those words.
Douglas, the board’s lawyer and witness do see a connection, and I can too. Lives are at stake in medicine. Doctors shouldn’t follow ethics and caution as conditional, contextual behaviors. Caution and ethics need to operate in doctors at a reflexive level, to the extent that they are not just the default setting but the only setting for doctors’ actions.
Interestingly, the board has not addressed Bosworth’s exploitation of her patients for her political and personal gain: https://dakotafreepress.com/2015/05/27/bosworth-violates-medical-ethics-asking-patients-to-sign-petitions-in-office-breaks-hipaa-at-trial/
The SDBMOE has a case here, Douglas, a pretty simple and straightforward case, as John notes. South Dakota patients and the medical profession will be better off if Annette Bosworth is not practicing medicine.
I’d point out that with Annette Bosworth’s inability to read, comprehend and follow the fairly simple rules of the petition process which affect the integrity of our election process it calls into question what mistakes that could occur in a medical practice and ethical questions. Will this doctor treat me with my best interest in mind or by what financial incentives there are available.
Petitions lying at the front desk of the clinic which I would think violates HIPPA, The loss of public trust from her felony conviction and past raffle schemes, will this doctor prescribe unnecessary prescriptions influenced by Big Pharma incentives? Overtreatment? That critical trust and credibility when people are most vulnerable may have been lost
exceedingly poor taste aside, as much of society exhibits while discussing prurient matters like suicide (with no real experience or understanding of, thankfully), my political point was:
using republican state, public prosecution of an apparently addled female republican for signature fraud, was a cheap price to pay for the theater value SDGOP gained. “squirrel!!”
meanwhile the exceedingly complex fraud and evasion the SDGOP used state-wide to avoid prosecution amidst an election for national senate and governor was lost on us all in the perhaps deliberate if fortuitous “two-step”.
Lost on us all, Leslie? I thought I hammered on both issues loudly and clearly.
But the effort to quantify the relative significance of issues and assert unproven smokescreen efforts does not take away from the facts of this case: 12 felony convictions are pretty good grounds for revoking a medical license. Thinking that standard and the law and ethics in general don’t apply to her and are less important than her story are further grounds for telling Annette Bosworth she can’t practice medicine in South Dakota.
no argument from me on either issue, the boz or EB5. W/o your reporting, and mercer’s ect., neither issue may have surfaced as important.
I just think SDGOP, with all its power, used us. JUST LIKE CHRIS CHRISTIE DID. they chose the narrative. and it wasn’t “complex” EB5. We did not have the horsepower to derail that fraud. that’s why SDP’ mission may turn out to be so important. imo
“Cory, when are you going to go after someone for cutting the tags of a mattress? They are there for a reason. Suppose cutting them off might cause a death and would that not be a felony?”
Really Rod. Comparing cutting off a tag on a pillow to what Bosworth did? She did this to herself. Cory didn’t do it, Jackley (as much as I don’t like him) didn’t do it. The only thing Cory did was expose what she did.
12 jurors decided that what she did was criminal. End of story.
Rod, the fact that no one may have been prosecuted for a crime before does not mean that we should not prosecute a person who commits a crime. Oaths matter. Petitions matter. Elections matter. People who don’t think those things matter should not be on the ballot… or practicing medicine.
Mattress tags? You show me that someone exploits those severed tags to abuse the electoral process and abuse political donors, and I’ll be all over that story.
Many people don’t know what notaries actually do. That is part of the problem. If Bosworth has been part of GOP politics previously, she was probably aware that hundreds of signature petitions had been submitted in the past without valid observation of signatures or notarization and expected she would get same over-looking of petition niceties. I am nearly certain that candidates from all parties have had petitions circulated in ways that made it impossible for the one person signing off on the petition to have ever seen all signatures being made. I have no idea for sure, but I see no damage to anybody that resulted from Bosworth’s petition folly.
Charging her with 12 felonies for the same repeated “crime” was gross prosecutor over-charging. It is like charging a kid who stole a dollar in pennies a theft charge for each separate penny.
South Dakota needs better designed petition forms and also better designed handbooks for circulators if such even exists. I grant the Bosworth, who passed medical exams, should be intelligent enough to know what is or is not required, but this whole sorry mess calls for thoughtful review of balloting and petitioning processes so that non-lawyers can easily understand all requirements.
As for election campaign petitions, SD should do what other states have done and charge something like a $50 (depending on office) filing fee and forget the signature requirements. The exception might be for initiative and referendum petitions.
I doubt election petition signature requirements have solved a single real problem in the history of South Dakota.
Why do we have election fraud laws with real consequences? Since nobody except Bosworth has been charged and convicted of those 12 felony counts, does that mean we look the other way because she is a pretty doctor?
If Bosworth apologists and loyal supporters don’t like our laws, they should lobby to change them. For now, the fact is that we have election laws for a reason. It doesn’t matter to what Bosworth rose or didn’t, it matters that she didn’t follow the petition process and admitted it
Yeah, there are plenty of candidate petitions that get filled out improperly. I’ve seen it from time to time, but it was questionable. How close does someone have to be to witness a signature? The law is a bit vague. I always thought you had to be essentially right beside or in front of someone. I wanted to make sure people filled out the form correctly. But the political class seems to think they can skirt the law, while we peons have to do everything according to Hoyle.
I have a tiny bit of sympathy for Bosworth, because her political/legal advisor should have known better, even if she didn’t. Still, the circulator verification is pretty clear, and she made it so patently easy. What she did is election fraud. It strikes at the heart of democracy. Suffer? Her punishment is to do community service. That is uplifting.
And anyone who knows anything about the colonies, and thinks things are always going to be done on the up and up there, don’t know the colonies.
Could Bosworth do her community service by using her physician’s education, knowledge and skills to help homeless or indigent men, women and children with medical needs if the Board takes her license away? That would seem a bit counterproductive, wouldn’t it?
a common rookie lawyer mistake is to make a hyper-technical violation of the law a sin against humanity. that is why we have elected officials oversee the prosecutorial discretionary judgement process, so someone with some judgement can make close-calls with a bias of course toward the victorious party values. hear, jackley and staff obviously has a reason for squashing the boz.
don-do you mean the amish ect., or the original 13?
here
Congratualtions to caheidelberger for his ad hominem attacks on Dr. Bosworth!!!…and on his incredible perserverance to finally take away her medical license!!!…another “Mission Accomplished!”…
Lars Aaning. another one of Tara Volesky’s inner circle. Yawn!
And like other Bosworth supporters offers no content in his post. Same old used and abused attempts are sarcasm.
Did it herself Lars, did it to herself
My friend Mr. C. is correct that Dr. Bos is a very pretty young woman, but they need to throw the books at her hard.
The Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners is well acquainted with Dr. Bosworth, as it has reviewed her license to practice a few times before. The review in process is conducted by her medical peers. Here is the composition of the nine member board:
“The Board of Examiners shall include six doctors of medicine holding a degree of M.D., and one doctor of osteopathy holding the degree of D.O. The members of the board shall be licensed in the State of South Dakota, and shall be skilled and capable physicians in good standing.”
“The membership of the Board of Examiners shall include two lay members who are users of the services regulated by the board. One lay member may be a nonphysician health care professional licensed by the board.”
A charge has been made that Dr. Bosworth’s predicament is a matter of ad hominem attacks, attacks on her person. The complaints and issues involving her are, in fact, based upon verifiable records of her performance as a physician and on incidents that call into question her ability to maintain competence and integrity in the practice of medicine. Her fellow medical practitioners will evaluate her actual practice of medicine based on actual medical encounters and outcomes She has in the past been given latitude, support, and supervision by the Medical Board to continue her practice. Whether her perjuries in signing untrue documents is a matter of negligence and slovenliness as a political amateur or the calculated tactic of flouting the law will be examined, as they have a direct bearing on the competence and integrity with which she understands and applies the knowledge and scientific rules of her profession.
The decision of the board will reflect whether or not her peers have confidence in her ability to maintain the standards of the medical profession.
The doctor has shown a hands-off attitude towards personal responsibility for her entire working life,or so it appears to me. Playing the victim card has always worked well with wingnuts,regardless of the severity of the dog doo they step in.
Whats kind of interesting is if she did voluntarily resign her license she could set up a deal or an agreement to get it back. Do xyz and you get it back at this time. Now shes gonna have to do xyz and a bunch of other stuff and still might not get it back. This almost borders on sadism. Another thing that wont help her is how her and her hubby have been pursuing open meetings violations against the medical board. Its like they do everything they can to make things as hard as possible on themselves, and then when it happens, cry that they are victims of other peoples stupidity, jealousy, arrogance, vindictiveness or whatever.
Hasn’t anybody here been at a meeting where a petition was passed through an audience row by row making it impossible for any human to observe every signature? It has been 40 years since I have been at a convention so I don’t know if that still happens or not.
I am fully in favor of rational election laws, but I fail to see that the prosecution of Bosworth and the public pillorying of her serves any useful purpose since she lost so convincingly anyway.
In any case, Cory and cohorts provided a useful service in uncovering the petition irregularities committed by Bosworth and cohorts. Daylight on elections is the best antidote to “election fraud”….which Republicans intent on denying minorities voting rights have perverted into a nearly meaningless term.
At least Bosworth hasn’t let mastiffs lose in public or siphoned off $millions in a state-supported fraud on the taxpayers and as far as I know hasn’t driven drunk and killed somebody.
Mr. Newquist,
Is there a precedent setting case where the South Dakota medical board has given or renewed a license for a doctor convicted of a felony?
It seems to me that if the law says a convicted felon cannot have a medical license it will be difficult for the medical board to reconcile that. What happens when they start making exceptions?
The homuculi on this board will take away the good Dr.’s license and force her into seedy propositions to support her family.
BCB, I appreciate your effort to look at the matter in a broader, forward-looking, lemonade-from-lemons perspective. But Dr. Newquist properly reminds us that, if the board is going to look beyond the strict letter of the law and the facts of Bosworth’s felony convictions and judge the matter in a broader context, that context must include the board’s past experiences with Bosworth. She has already been given second chances for past infractions dealing with medical ethics and professional performance. These felonies are not one isolated instance of error; they are additional instances of malfeasance continuing a past pattern of behavior that has called into question her worthiness of a medical license. She keeps getting into trouble; when do we finally hold her accountable for her actions? When do we finally stop cutting her slack?
“Haven’t I suffered enough?” she asks. No, apparently not enough to make her stop blaming others for her troubles, take responsibility for her bad behavior, and stop breaking the rules and standards of her profession.
I’ve observed the same questionable circulation of candidate petitions as Wiken. Passing a petition through a crowd, in my opinion, is a violation of the law. But the political class thinks it is above the law. They’ve skirted this law for decades, so they think the law they apply to you and me doesn’t apply to them.
Roger,
I don’t think there are any precedent-setting cases that establish a standard for the Board of Examiners to follow. State law refers convictions of physicians to the Examiners and the law gives them wide discretion by specifying what they “may” do.
“36-4-29. Grounds for cancellation, revocation, suspension or limitation of license, resident license, or certificate. The Board of Examiners may cancel, revoke, suspend, or limit the license, resident license, or certificate of any physician or surgeon issued under this chapter upon satisfactory proof by a preponderance of the evidence in compliance with chapter 1-26 of such a licensee’s, resident licensee’s, or certificate holder’s professional incompetence, or unprofessional or dishonorable conduct, or proof of a violation of this chapter in any respect. However, the board may not base a finding of unprofessional or dishonorable conduct solely on the basis that a licensee, resident licensee, or certificate holder practices chelation therapy.
” For the purposes of this section, professional incompetence is a deviation from the statewide standard of competence, which is that minimum degree of skill and knowledge necessary for the performance of characteristic tasks of a physician or surgeon in at least a reasonably effective way.”
The law defines unprofessional conduct to include: “(6) Conviction of any criminal offense of the grade of felony, any conviction of a criminal offense arising out of the practice of medicine or osteopathy, or one in connection with any criminal offense involving moral turpitude.”
Note that the law concentrates on acts more directly involved in the practice of medicine, although it includes behaviors outside of practice that impinge on a physician’s professional status. My experience in sitting on boards reviewing the discipline of professors would indicate that the Examiners would be concerned that if Bosworth did not read or follow the instructions for procedures on nominating petitions, would there be instances where she demonstrated that kind of negligence and insouciance or deviousness in her practice of medicine.
The Examiners will place their emphasis, I think, on how her behavior represents their profession and how much they will have to deal with her in the future.
I was present for the entire Bosworth hearing on 31 July 2015 and I heard all the testimony presented by both sides…my conclusions were that: 1) Dr. Bosworth’s license revocation was already decided by the AG’s office, the legal arm of the SDBMOE; 2) No amount of testimony by Dr. Bosworth’s defense would ever change that; 3) The prosecution witness, Dr. John R Whipple, labelled Dr. Bosworth as unfit and dangerous to practice medicine but had never met her before; 4) No prosecution testimony presented any evidence of Dr. Bosworth ever having harmed any patient; 5) Dr. Bosworth was lauded by distinguished faculty members for her medical expertise and they did not feel the felony convictions on the petition issue rose to a level mandating license revocation; 6)Since no SDBMOE board members were present the Board will simply rely on the conclusions of the hearing officer, Mr. Paul Henry, a legal professional.
Y’all’s pickin’ on her cuz Grudz thinks she’s beeyooteafull.
David, I notice that the phrase in SDCL 36-4-30(6) says “Conviction of any criminal offense of the grade of felony,” then has a separate clause addressing criminal offenses arising out of the practice of medicine. That division tells me that the drafters of that standard viewed any felony as proper grounds for revoking a medical license, not just those that arise in the course of practicing medicine. That’s an important point for Dr. Aanning and other defenders of Dr. Bosworth to recognize. Dr. Aanning complains that no amount of testimony offered by Dr. Bosworth seemed to be able to cut through the seeming determination of the board to revoke this medical license… but that can be explained logically and fairly by the fact that not one word of Dr. Bosworth’s defense refuted the law and facts of the case: Dr. Bosworth has 12 felony convictions, and the law says that is grounds for revoking a license. Given that Dr. Bosworth has already received second chances after previous infractions, why let this grave matter of conviction of 12 felonies also get a second chance? There comes a time when we stop making excuses and giving the benefit of the doubt and instead follow the law. Now is that time.
Ken Santema offers the reasonable argument that Bosworth is already being punished for her felonies through the courts and does not deserve to lose her medical license as further punishment. I would respond, as I did to Bearcreekbat above, that Santema’s analysis ignores the fact that the board has already given the doctor second chances for other violations of medical ethics in the past, and that the felonies confirm a continuing disregard for rules that indicates the risk of letting her continue to practice medicine is too great for patients and the profession.
My comment was not based on giving Bosworth a second or third chance (although I do believe that people can make multiple mistakes and then change their lives for the better).
My point is that we have many homeless and indigent people with unmet medical needs (due to our Governor’s “brilliant” rejection of the Medicaid expansion) and that it would make sense to allow or require Bosworth to use her celebrated medical knowledge and skills to meet her community service obligations by helping these homeless and indigent individuals who have been abandoned by our Republican leadership, even if Bosworth had to function under supervision.
Since the Board has the discretion whether to revoke her license even after her 12 felony convictions, it makes sense to me that the Board could even give Bosworth a trial during her community service that might benefit those in need and help her get back on the road to reality. Perhaps the Board could delay a final decision during this community service term and then consider evidence developed doing community service before issuing a final decision.
Bosworth’s homeless patients would have her stretched out on a couch griping about how unfair the state and everyone in general have been treating her. She’ll never change,never will. So afraid of the way she feels. (I stole that from Fleetwood Mac)
Cory, I was trying to make the same point you did that while the law regarding medical licenses focuses on the practice of medicine, it provides consideration of other aspects of behavior and character. It is very difficult to reconcile some things Bosworth has done and said–the land auction, her treatment of medical professional employees, and some of her performances in the campaign–with claims of soundness of mind and virtue of character. And her overall demeanor is quite indicative of someone with serious personality issues.
The investigative procedures outlined for the Board of Examiners do not seem to limit the scope of a review, but they don’t exactly encourage the Board to go beyond her conviction for false statements of affirmation on the nominating petitions. If her conviction is put the context of other words and deeds, a thorough examination of how she conducts her medical practice seems in order. I wonder how those medical colleagues and professors who have testified in her behalf reconcile her behavior with her practice.