Dr. Wanda Heffernon, a former UCSF anesthesiologist, made headlines in 2001 when she pleaded guilty to stealing credit cards from her fellow physicians and forging prescriptions to feed her drug addiction.
While facing those charges, she worked as a physical therapist at a nursing home in San Mateo County, where she was accused — and later convicted — of elder abuse after prying a diamond wedding ring off a 94-year-old patient, bruising the woman’s finger in the process. The judge who sentenced Heffernon to two years in prison noted the extreme vulnerability of the victim and remarked that there was “a dark side to Ms. Heffernon that is difficult to fathom.”
Now, many years later, Heffernon is licensed to practice medicine in California.
After surrendering her license in 2001, Heffernon successfully petitioned the Medical Board of California in 2014 to get it back on the condition she remain on probation for five years. It’s unclear whether Heffernon, who lives in Oakland, is currently practicing medicine. She hastily declined to comment when reached by phone.
Heffernon is one of 500 doctors in the state — including 85 in the Bay Area — on probation by the state medical board. But they’re not required by law to disclose their probationary status to their patients, and consumer advocates say they should be.
“Doctors should have to tell you they are on probation before they treat you,” said Eric Andrist, who supports patient notification laws and is a vocal critic of the medical board. “The probation itself is ridiculous. When you look at many of these cases, the licenses should be revoked, not suspended.”
The state Medical Board licenses physicians and surgeons and has the authority to investigate complaints and issue sanctions when necessary. Penalties can range from a public reprimand, probation or revoking a license.
Doctors can continue to see patients while on probation, although they may face additional requirements like psychiatric counseling and drug and alcohol testing. In the case of sexual misconduct, doctors may be required to have a third-party chaperone in the room when treating patients.
While few doctors are on probation — less than 1 percent — the reasons for being placed on the list can range from sexual misconduct to gross negligence to overprescribing opioids that led to multiple patients dying. How patients find out whether their doctor is on probation is a contentious fight in the state Capitol.
California physicians are required to disclose their probation to hospitals and their malpractice insurers, but it’s up to the patient to look up their doctor on the Medical Board of California’s website. Critics say that isn’t enough and that such requirements ignore the growing aging population that may not know how to search for such information.
Consumer advocates have pushed lawmakers and the medical board for years to require doctors to notify patients if they are placed on probation. State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, wrote a bill last year that would have required doctors to inform their patients if the medical board places them on probation. The bill died on the Senate floor when many lawmakers abstained.
This year, the law that gives the state medical board the authority to oversee doctors is up for renewal in the state Legislature. The patient notification requirement could be included in that legislation. Hill is the chair of the Senate committee overseeing the medical board’s renewal.
The medical board’s executive director, Kimberly Kirchmeyer, said requiring a doctor to tell a patient about probation would cause mistrust and that patients are sufficiently informed by having the information available online.
“If I go to a primary care doctor and the person says to me, ‘By the way, I’m on probation,’ there goes whatever trust I have,” added board President Dr. Dev GnanaDev. “It’s gone.”
Hill disagrees. He said the doctor-patient relationship is eroded when doctors hide the fact that they are on probation. At a hearing last month in Sacramento on the medical board’s renewal, Hill pointed to examples of male doctors in his own San Mateo County who are required as part of their probation to have a third party in the room when seeing female patients.
“If my wife or my daughter were to go to that physician, how would they know what the terms and conditions are and whether they are being followed?” Hill asked.
The California Medical Association, an influential industry group that represents doctors, is supporting a bill that would bar the medical board from placing a doctor on probation for serious crimes such as felony convictions related to the care of a patient or sex abuse. AB505 by Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, is awaiting its first committee hearing.
But the California Medical Association opposes patient notification requirements, saying they undermine due process protections by requiring doctors who have not admitted to guilt or settled a case to disclose their probation status to patients. That’s essentially a de facto suspension, the group argues.
“In addition to due process concerns, we disagree with the underlying premise that the state Medical Board is not doing its job to determine whether or not a physician is safe to practice,” said Joanne Adams, spokeswoman for the California Medical Association.
Critics say the medical board is too focused on protecting doctors, despite a stated mission of being a consumer protection agency. Those critics point to the numerous complaints to the board that appear to go nowhere.
The medical board receives an average of 8,000 complaints a year, an increase over the past four years.
In the past three years, the medical board investigated and closed 23,000 complaints and referred 1,400 cases to the state attorney general. Almost 400 doctors lost their licenses or voluntarily surrendered them in the past three years, according to statistics the medical board provided the state Legislature.
But, like Heffernon, doctors whose licenses are surrendered or revoked can still apply to be reinstated. In 2015, the medical board reinstated Bakersfield Dr. Esmail Nadjmabadi, who pleaded no contest in an administrative hearing six years earlier to sexual exploitation by a physician. In San Bernardino County, Dr. Hari Reddy’s license was reinstated in 2015 despite his conviction in criminal court of sexual battery against a patient and an administrative law judge finding he engaged in sexual misconduct with five other patients ranging in age from 15 to 38 years old.
Both Nadjmabadi and Reddy are on probation with the state medical board and continue to see patients.
“This is really a big deal,” said Carmen Balber, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog, which advocates for patient notification laws. “We require restaurants to post their grades from the public health department on their window. It’s that transparency we think is necessary when it comes to our food, but somehow we don’t have that for our doctors.”