Topeka ? Physicians in Kansas who commit offenses against patients get off with hardly a slap on the wrist, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen charged Thursday.

“For a number of the offenses committed by Kansas doctors, the disciplinary actions have been quite lenient,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

“Most Kansas doctors who committed one or more of the five most serious offenses weren’t required to stop practicing, even temporarily. Therefore, it is likely that they are still practicing and that their patients are not aware of their offenses,” Wolfe said.

But Jerry Slaughter, executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, disagreed with Public Citizen’s conclusions, saying the group’s report was simplistic.

“This is a very high-level, away-from-the-ground look or measure of how a state is doing,” Slaughter said.

Dispute over ranking

Public Citizen ranked Kansas 36th in the nation based on the number of serious disciplinary actions, such as license revocation, per 1,000 doctors. Seven states — Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona and Ohio — disciplined more than three times as many doctors per 1,000 as Kansas, the group said.

Public Citizen said this ranking showed that the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates doctors in the state, was failing to do its job.

But Slaughter said the numbers just as easily could be interpreted to mean that Kansas doctors were doing a good job and didn’t need as many sanctions.

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“If a state is lower on the list, maybe that means that state doesn’t have as many doctors who need to be sanctioned,” he said.

Slaughter noted that Kansas ranked No. 20 last year.

“The Healing Arts Board isn’t doing anything different this year than they did last year,” he said. “Some years they are going to have more and some less. This is a very crude measurement.”

Officials with the Kansas Board of Healing Arts did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Battling Web sites

Public Citizen posted an online database that shows 215 physicians have been disciplined by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for incompetence, misprescribing drugs, sexual misconduct, criminal convictions, substandard care, ethical lapses and other offenses.

The lone Lawrence doctor on the disciplinary list no longer practices here. That was Dr. Kris Neuhaus, who formerly operated an abortion clinic.

Of the 35 Kansas disciplinary actions taken for the most serious offenses, seven involved revoked or suspended licenses. Of 18 actions taken against doctors for misprescribing or overprescribing drugs, three involved revoked or suspended licenses.

“All too often, state medical boards are more concerned about protecting the reputations of doctors than doing their job, which is to protect unsuspecting patients from doctors who may be incompetent or negligent,” Wolfe said. “Kansas has a poor record of letting serious and sometimes repeat offenders off the hook.”

Public Citizen added its data on Kansas to a Web site, www.questionabledoctors.org. Consumers can search the list of disciplined doctors for free, but they must pay $10 to view the disciplinary reports for up to 10 doctors over a one-year period.

The information covers the period from 1992 to 2001. Up-to-date information on disciplinary actions can be seen on the State Board of Healing Arts Web site at ksbha.org, although that site doesn’t provide details about offenses in years prior to 2003.