The Doctor is Out!

Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN), is so eager to pretentiously display his medical credentials that they're in giant letters at the very top of his Senate web page. What's the problem with that? Well, it seems that Dr. Frist lied on his medical license renewal about how much time he spent actually studying the continuing medical education required to keep his license in good standing.

Tennessee requires its licensed physicians to complete 40 hours of continuing medical education every two years. Frist, a heart-lung surgeon who is considering a 2008 presidential run, submitted a license renewal with the Tennessee Health Department stating he has fulfilled that requirement.
[...]
Tennessee law states that doctors who fail to do their continuing medical education "will be subject to disciplinary action."

Dan Warlick, a Nashville lawyer who represents doctors in trouble with the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, said a case such as Frist's would likely be taken seriously.

"They have been routinely revoking licenses for physicians who have misrepresented to the board what they have done," Warlick said.

"Medicine changes," Warlick added. "If you're telling them you're keeping up and you're not, that would be a very significant problem for the board to have to deal with."
Frist absolutely loves to flaunt his medical degree, as he famously did during the Terry Schiavo affair by publicly refuting her doctors' diagnoses, despite having never actually seen the patient, and being proven completely wrong later on. And his public endorsement of intelligent design, the pseudoscientific "theory" that seeks to undermine evolution, one of the philosophical underpinnings of modern medicine and biology, indicates that he may be in need of a few extra refresher courses as is.

But this may be a great opportunity for Democrats seeking to get the ball rolling on discrediting Frist's nascent presidential campaign, though it may not be necessary, as has Frist hasn't had the best year, and will likely be closely associated with Bush (who is still a major political liability). Still, it's never too early to get a head start, and public admissions of dishonesty are a potent weapon in character assassination .

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