Nine months later, the lump was found to be cancerous and she underwent a double mastectomy. The Arizona Daily Star Second of a two-day series Getting the dirt on your doctor has never been easy in Arizona. Unless a physician has been seriously disciplined, state regulators won't tell you much more than what training the doctor received. The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners, which licenses the state's 14,000 doctors and investigates complaints against them, does little to help you judge whether your doctor is competent. In fact, the board recently made it even tougher for you to learn about a doctor's record.
Callers can still hear about disciplinary actions.
But under pressure from doctors, the board voted in September to stop telling patients about complaints that were thrown out, led to non-disciplinary warning letters, or remain under investigation. Now Arizonans must go to the board office in northeast Phoenix to review files for that information. That means if a doctor has a long history of complaints, patients can't tell if the doctor was accused, for example, of malpractice, improper billing or poor record-keeping. The medical board's Web site also omits that information. Aggravating medication In March 1992, Aguilar gave Tucson bookbinder Hung Quang Tran pain medication for a sore foot, even though he knew it might aggravate the patient's asthma.