Maryland's Health Department Corrupt Then and Now Article One Doctor Lois Leonard

Series: Corruption in The Maryland Board of Physicians

              and The Maryland Health Department

Maryland’s Health Department Corrupt then and now Article One Doctor Lois Leonard

By Mark Davis, MD Journalist, Author, Media Consultant

Decades may pass yet corrupt government entities linger. Unaccountable to no one their appointed soldiers march through time with the venomous bite of institutionalized authority destroying the very framework they are supposed to oversee. One such designee was Doctor Lois Leonard. Her horrific death from cancer in 1993 does not excuse her of actions in which she was involved several years earlier.

Doctor Leonard was empowered to cite nursing homes for inadequacies in nursing and physician care by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (now the Maryland Health Department). No medical or surgical case was too complex for Doctor Leonard to critique. Doctor Leonard’s questionable reviews came under scrutiny when she cited the Poplar Manor Nursing Home.

Mark Davis MD purchased the Poplar Manor Nursing Home with 12 investors, most of them Doctors, in August of 1989 after being the facility’s medical director for 8 years. Amongst the investors were two surgeons who provided the surgical care to the home’s residents. They were responsible for a range of treatments including decubitus care. Additionally, the facility enlisted the aid of a neurologist, an endocrinologist, offsite care with a cardiologist, two podiatrists visited regularly, a dermatologist and several other medical consultants. Dr. Leonard believed she was capable of critiquing this collective set of professionals. Antithetically she turned out to be a CHARLATAN, hired by the Maryland Health Department, which was more worried with its public image than the people they claimed to help. Carol Benner, Dr. Leonard’s immediate supervisor, bathed in the glow of the negative reports her Doctor and staff generated, by releasing these reports to the media before the nursing home in question received them, in this case Poplar Manor. Worse Benner’s office was aware Poplar Manor was on a track to lose its certification as a viable nursing facility, yet withheld this information from the prospective owners, though requested by their attorneys prior to sale.

Poplar Manor was under siege by the Health Department’s division of Long-Term care from the day it transferred ownership. Documentary evidence has come into the possession of this journalist displaying clearly Poplar Manor was in the Health Department’s sights for closure. Perhaps the reason Ms. Benner’s office withheld this documentary evidence was the prior ownership included Phillip Greene, a former high ranking official in the Maryland Health Department. Once Mr. Greene received his money for the facility in August of 1989 Dr. Leonard and her team came in full force placing the facility on a 90 track to closure. We can only venture a guess how deep the relationship was between the government officials managing the nursing home review and Mr. Greene.

Maryland Department of Long-Term care refused, several times, to provide Dr. Leonard’s resume. In a case filed with the United States District Court of Maryland, Civil No. MJG-93-1242 Dr. Leonard provided an affidavit to the court. In that affidavit it was clear why her credentials were withheld. Dr. Leonard did not have the abilities or training to survey the physicians she was tasked with reviewing. She did not have the appropriate skills in Internal Medicine or Surgery even for the most basic review. In more restrain tones she was a shill for the Maryland Office of Long-Term care. On her written and or oral word nursing homes, such as Poplar Manor, were forced to close. In the event a physician filed a complaint regarding Dr. Leonard’s dubious reports, more shills would follow behind her, as was the case with Poplar Manor.

Obsessed with closing Poplar Manor Dr. Leonard fabricated several reports claiming the care in the facility was horrific. To justify her baseless reviews two more shills were brought in from University of Maryland to cover her tracks, Drs. Timothy Keay and George Taler. Neither physician had the intensity of training to perform in depth nursing home reviews. Their actions will be discussed in article 2 of this series along with material misrepresentations made by them.

Dr. Lois Leonard’s fraudulent reports display a person who was not qualified to place a band aid on a patient. Yet these reports gave the State of Maryland ammunition to close Poplar Manor Nursing Home after state operatives fleeced its bank accounts, forced the dismissal of nearly 200 employees, displaced 157 nursing home residents and crushed the careers of many including this author. Ironically after the state fed false news reports to the media, in an effort smear its ownership, there were no malpractice suits filed against the home, it’s staff of physicians or this author. The question which this author has the answer to is: Who in the State of Maryland Hierarchy was behind this concerted effort to destroy a viable nursing facility? Follow this series to receive the startling answer.

Mark Davis, MD

platomd@gmail.com  medicalboardusa.com