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"BOARD CERTIFIED" Health Care Professionals in Jalisco


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Spent about a hour at CAMAJAL in Guadalajara today. Spoke with one of the intake persons.

CAMAJAL is a (required) arbitration forum that is a prerequisite to filing a civil action. It is used almost exclusively for health care professional (HCP) disputes.

During my conversation, I confirmed some things I knew and got some information I did not know or even suspect.

First, I asked if there is any "Board" or other official body that tests or certified physicians in Jalisco. No. It was confirmed that the CITA (I think that's it) simply shows that the HCP has received and registered that he/she has graduated medical/dental school and received a diploma. This is as I pretty much knew.

Next I asked about if there was any governmental body/organization that disciplined a HCP in the event of "misconduct" for gross negligence in the performance of his/her practice. No.
 
I got more specific and asked as a very extreme example, what if a doctor is drunk, operated on a patient and cuts off the wrong leg. Can his/her ability to practice his/her profession be stopped. "Possibly." It was explained that a court can make an order (injunction) against a person who, while having completed the requisite training, is unable to competently practice his/her profession and is putting his/her patients at risk. This is an application of general laws against doing any act, intentionally or negligently, that is likely to or does cause physical pain and suffering to the patient.

In other words, our drunk doctor can be enjoined from continuing practice. Where does it go from there? No idea.

The takeaways from this post are 1) It appears to be false, misleading and deceptive to say an HCP is "BOARD CERTIFIED." AND 2) While there is civil recourse against a negligent HCP, it is most likely that realistically, there is little that can be done to stop the incompetent (for whatever reason) from continuing practice on unsuspecting patients.

NEXT UP: What about malpractice insurance for HCPs?
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This has always been a “buyer beware” society.   This applies to all transactions, even medical.  You use a service provider based on word of mouth. The level of competence is going to vary greatly in all fields. Use these web boards to inquire or to do searches on the service provider you’re interested in.

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Mexico has laws that reflect a low liability country being a semi industrialized or newly industrialized country - NIC.

 This is one of the main reasons many services cost much less than in a fully industrialized country that has laws that reflect a high liability country where services will cost much more to cover the costs of operating in those countries.

This includes Mexico's government and services that private individuals/companies offer. If it is much less expensive there is a good reason besides the obvious.

It will be difficult to understand these things without educating yourself to what constitutes low liability in most segments of a culture not concerned with causing costs to rise because of a higher liability written into their laws when a large portion of the population needs inexpensives services - government and civil.

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I've gone out my way over years of travel to find excellent and reasonably priced medical and dental care worldwide, outside of the financially absurd US system.  Dentists aside, health professionals with US experience and appropriate US board certification and English proficiency have always been identifiable in advance (emergencies would be another scenario).

As an experiment, I just looked up a neurosurgeon in Guadalajara who was a member of the American College of Surgeons (https://www.facs.org/about-acs).  One record came up (name redacted here) using the web site member 'search by country' function. See https://www.facs.org/search/find-a-surgeon?city=guadalajara&country=Mexico&specialty=Neurological Surgery  (record below).

Now, this gentleman must be at least eighty, so he might best serve as a consultant for further references and case management, but his ACA indicated experience could represent a decisive factor in a dire emergency.  And the ACS itself is no guarantee of perfection, but at least the razor sharp self interest of US surgeons in this professional marketing vehicle can be leveraged, and the MDs I've met offshore have been great.

"Valued Fellow Since 1964

Hospital Appointments - Civil, Mexico-Amer and Univ Guadalajara Hosps.

Active

My Board Certification - American Board of Neurological Surgery"

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during a discussion of a friend's bad experience with another friend who is a dentist. He said HCPs have to be very careful in Mexico because their profession falls under the criminal laws. He said their mistakes make them criminally liable.

 

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All the above posts are spot on. And as to Utilitus, your due diligence was the way to go.

Here is the word on a Chapala dentist that must be read, including some recent posts about him. www.maskarasclinic.com

Don't forget one important thing. In the U.S., if a health care professional screws up, you can take legal action. In Mexico, if that happens, the doctor may apologize for the inconvenience and then go on to his/her next victim.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, HarryB said:

during a discussion of a friend's bad experience with another friend who is a dentist. He said HCPs have to be very careful in Mexico because their profession falls under the criminal laws. He said their mistakes make them criminally liable.

 

Most people don't know that. One dentista (woman) just west of Walmart on the lake side of the street, has a complaint pending against her for fraud. It was reviewed by the head attorney at the Ministerio Publico and he signed off on it. I believe it was fraud. Removed healthy teeth (all of the woman's teeth), lied about her having the training and qualifications to do dental implants and more.

When the Ministerio Publico sent an investigator out to her office to get copies of her file for the patient, she refused to give it to the investigator.

There is a scathing "review" of her in detail on a website put up specifically as to this incident.

Also, the only way other than a criminal complaint to get at these incompetent and rip-off doctors/dentists, is to get a court order (injunction) stopping them from practicing. Otherwise, no matter what they do, they can't be stopped as there is no licensing board here.

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I'm so f'ing glad it is the way it is here in Mexico and I hope the sh*t stirrers among us never get their wish to be more like our northern neighbors. I've had crappy dental work done on both sides of the border and I've sucked it up and moved on because life is too darn short to spend my time ruminating over what amounts to nada. I suggest some of the whiners and complainers on these boards do the same or, make the choice to scurry northward where they believe they are protected from life by laws,  boards of one kind or another, and the ability to sue anyone and everyone who farts in their direction.  

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From 'Medical laws and ethics of Babylon as read in Hammurabi's code (History, circa 1770 B.C.)'  in  The Internet Journal of Law, Healthcare and Ethics. 2006 Volume 4 Number 2.     See: http://ispub.com/IJLHE/4/2/10352

"Method: Studying the translated preserved copy of the code and review of literature in Law and medicine to indicate the relevant items which cast a light on the status of law in Ancient civilization of Babylon in Mesopotamia.

Results: There were 282 laws, dealing with all aspect of public life, citizen's rights and limits and the Babylon Kingdom's justice system.  The Code of Hammurabi described a scaled fee schedule for surgical services, which was linked to the outcome of the surgery so if not met, resulted in severe penalties, required documentation of diseases and therapies, included prescription benefits. The code fully explained patient's rights according of proclaimed King's Code."

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