STATE MEDICAL BOARD

Applegate v. State Med. Bd. of Ohio, No. 076AP-78 (Ohio App. Nov. 29, 2007)

The Court of Appeals of Ohio reversed in part a lower court's judgment which had affirmed a state medical board's suspension of a physician's medical license. The physician had answered "no" to a question in a licensure application asking whether the physician's privileges had ever been "suspended, restricted, or revoked." As the physician's clinical privileges had been placed on probation for unprofessional conduct, the board found that the physician had intentionally misled the board. The board argued that pursuant to the commonly understood definitions of the terms, "probation is a restriction." The Court of Appeals consulted Webster's Dictionary and disagreed, noting "[a]fter comparing these two definitions, we cannot conclude that probation is a restriction."

Additionally, the court concluded that the National Practitioner Data Bank's classification of the physician's probation as "other priv restrict: unprofessional conduct" also failed to establish that the physician intentionally misled the board.