CPIL and Consumer Watchdog Submit a Letter to CA Medical Board on The Death Certificate Project

State Capital

SAN DIEGO (February 5, 2019) – The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law's Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) and Consumer Watchdog submitted a letter and testified to the California Medical Board on patient safety and the Board’s initiative to investigate excessive prescribing by doctors involved in prescription overdose deaths is critical to state efforts to end the opioid epidemic.

“The Medical Board of California’s paramount priority is public protection,” wrote Bridget Fogarty Gramme, Administrative Director of the Center for Public Interest Law and Carmen Balber, Executive Director with Consumer Watchdog. “The Death Certificate Project fills a vital gap in physician oversight and will help the state curb the opioid overdose crisis by identifying dangerous prescribing and protecting future patients from harm.”

“Too often, we find ourselves beseeching the Board to do a better job protecting patients. We are glad to say that, in this case, you listened,” they wrote.

The Medical Board of California launched the Death Certificate Project to investigate doctors connected to patient overdose deaths after bipartisan legislation to do so was vetoed for lack of funding in 2013. The project has resulted in accusations to sanction or revoke the licenses of 23 doctors identified as having harmed or killed patients through patterns of negligence and excessive prescribing.

To read the letter in its entirety or find out more information about CPIL please visit CPIL’s webpage.

About Center for Public Interest Law

Founded in 1980, the University of San Diego School of Law’s Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) serves as an academic center of research and advocacy in regulatory and public interest law. CPIL focuses its efforts on the study of an extremely powerful, yet often overlooked, level of government: state regulatory agencies. Under the supervision of experienced public interest attorneys and advocates, CPIL law student interns study California agencies that regulate business, professions, and trades.

CPIL publishes the California Regulatory Law Reporter, a unique legal journal that covers the activities and decisions of over 12 major California regulatory agencies.

In addition to its academic program, CPIL has an advocacy component. Center faculty, professional staff, and interns represent the interests of the unorganized and underrepresented in California’s legislature, courts, and regulatory agencies. CPIL attempts to make the regulatory functions of California government more efficient and visible by serving as a public monitor of state regulatory activity. The Center has been particularly active in reforming the state’s professional discipline systems for attorneys and physicians, and in advocating public interest reforms to the state’s open meetings and public records statutes.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world.  The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates.  The law school's faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 36th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 29th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.

 

 

Contact:

Katie Gonzalez
katiegonzalez@sandiego.edu
(619) 260-4806

Phone

Contact Us

View Directory

83° 61°

Visit Campus

5998 Alcalá Park
San Diego, CA 92110