Kazmi v. Dep’t of Fin. and Prof’l Regulation (Summary)

PHYSICIAN LICENSURE

Kazmi v. Dep’t of Fin. and Prof’l Regulation, No. 1-13-0959 (Ill. App. Ct. Sept. 10, 2014)

The Appellate Court of Illinois confirmed a decision by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (“Illinois Board of Medicine”) to revoke a physician’s license to practice medicine in the State of Illinois. In so doing, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision of a lower court, which had struck down the initial revocation by the Illinois Board of Medicine as overly harsh and limited the punishment to a suspension of the physician’s license for a minimum of nine months.

At trial, the physician admitted that he had made numerous misrepresentations on his application for an Illinois medical license. These misrepresentations included fabricated employment histories, omissions of various disciplinary and performance problems in past residencies, the failure to disclose a suspension for prescribing controlled substances for his wife, and residencies that he had never completed. The court also noted that the state of Ohio had barred this physician from ever obtaining a medical license because of similar problems.

Based upon these facts and circumstances, the court concluded that the physician’s misrepresentations had prevented the Illinois Board of Medicine from conducting any meaningful assessment of his fitness to practice medicine. The court explained that fraud had “tainted the process from the outset” and that any sanction short of revocation would permit the physician to keep a license he was never entitled to in the first place. Concluding that the Illinois Board of Medicine exercised its authority in an appropriate fashion, the court reversed the lower court’s decision and reinstated the original revocation of the physician’s license to practice medicine in Illinois.