What Happened to My Medical License? Dr. Westin Childs

What Happened to my Medical License?

I have a lot of people interested in the way that I used to practice medicine and I get frequent requests to get treated. In searching for my practice you may have found that my medical license was surrendered several years ago.

This article is the story of how that happened!

If you stumbled upon this then you probably have a lot of questions. What does that mean? Did I get in trouble? Can I still see patients? All of these questions and more will be answered here!

To really set the record straight I have to give a little bit of information and backstory.

And before I do that, there are a few things that you should know:

#1. Conventional medical doctors HATE doctors like me. I will explain more about why this is as we go but I want to put this here for now.

#2. I’m kind of a rule-breaker. I’ll admit it. I don’t love to follow the rules. Even though I don’t break the law, I have no problem bending some rules. This bending of the rules is a problem for a Doctor because doctors are supposed to be “conservative”. My rule-breaking tendencies are the reason I was so successful, though! By breaking rules I wasn’t afraid to try new therapies, to listen to patients when they said things that went against the grain, to use medications off-label, and to combine therapies that wouldn’t normally be combined.

#3. I never hurt anyone nor did I ever have any malpractice complaints/issues against my medical license. My patients loved my online medical practice and I successfully helped hundreds of patients optimize their thyroid, and hormones, and lose hundreds of pounds even after conventional medical therapies like bariatric surgery failed.

#4. I did have 2 complaints against my medical license which are well-documented and available to the public. This story will explain those complaints and how they led to the surrender of my medical license.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about complaints against a medical license.

In reality, a complaint against a medical license is not much different than a complaint that you might leave for a business.

A complaint is just that. A complaint. These complaints can range from being very serious to actually being very silly.

But because we are talking about health here, each and every complaint is investigated.

Some complaints arise from people because they thought a doctor was rude to them or because they had a bad experience with office staff. Other complaints are more serious and stem from state departments or from federal agencies.

In my case, I had 2 complaints against my medical license.

One from a former patient and one from the Arizona Department of Health.

The first was from a former patient (abbreviated R.G. in various documents) but not for being mistreated or anything like that.

The story behind the complaint is somewhat interesting and it all stemmed from an email that was accidentally sent to some of my current patients stating that they received a refund.

This particular patient was a patient of mine for about 2-3 months and was doing well. At the time I had a direct primary care model in which you were charged every month to have unlimited access to me and unlimited visits/care.

The price for this service was around $149 and this particular patient had trouble making the payment. We worked with her and provided her with several months of care free of charge because our goal was to never leave a patient “high and dry”.

Ultimately, she wasn’t ever able to make her payment despite trying multiple credit/debit cards and so we had to refer her to a local doctor to resume her care.

We never heard from her until about 6 months later when a complaint surfaced. Her complaint stated that our practice was shady and that we needed to be looked into.

This came as a surprise to us because we never received any indication of this

We later found out that the system that would keep track of our charges sent a false “refund” message to several clients including her. Once we found out about the glitch it was quickly fixed and we emailed those who were affected that it was a glitch but the damage was apparently done!

I don’t know for sure but I suspect that this patient felt she was entitled to that refund because of the email glitch and that was the reason for the complaint. I will never know for sure but that’s my suspicion!

Anyway, because of the complaint, the medical board then looked into her case and found that she was being treated via telemedicine.

My practice at that time consisted solely of telemedicine patients in which I would treat patients all over the United States.

This was amazing from the patient perspective because it allowed them to get access to thyroid medications and thyroid treatment which was often never available to them.

People in rural cities were finally able to get T3 medications, NDT thyroid medications, a full set of labs, and much more, all without leaving their homes.

This practice worked out amazingly well and was incredibly successful for all of those who were a part of it.

Unfortunately, medical boards don’t allow this type of medical practice.

At that time, it was required to see patients physically in order to prescribe medications to them.

So despite the success of my hundreds of patients, this complaint ultimately exposed that issue.

I didn’t know I was breaking any rules or regulations at the time (though I did have my suspicions) and because it was so successful for patients I didn’t really think to look into it.

As far as I can tell, the surrendering of my medical license ultimately stemmed from this one complaint from an email glitch that was accidentally sent to this particular patient.

I’ll never know for sure if that’s the case but I believe it probably was!

Why did this complaint lead to the surrendering of my license?

The answer to this question comes back to one of my original statements.

Medical boards and doctors hate doctors who practice like me.

Again, I’m not 100% sure why, but medical boards absolutely hate doctors who take a more natural approach to therapies. They also very much dislike doctors who treat with thyroid medications like T3 and NDT.

Despite the amazing success that these therapies have for thyroid patients, conventional doctors really don’t like them.

They believe they cause harm in the form of atrial fibrillation and osteoporosis.

I’ve debunked these claims in other articles but what you need to understand here is that doctors who practice like me have a huge target on their backs.

It’s part of the reason that you will have such a hard time finding doctors who practice like me. They are out there but they have to keep quiet in order to stay under the radar.

Once they get the attention it’s incredibly easy for medical boards to take them down.

Was I breaking the rules of telemedicine? Yes.

Was anyone getting hurt? No.

Did patients love the treatment they were receiving? Yes.

Were the treatments dangerous? Definitely not.

Did the punishment fit the crime from the medical board? Debatable. I personally believe that if I was practicing in a “normal” way that this complaint would have been swept under the rug, but here we are!

Okay, so that was the first complaint.

What about the second?

The second complaint came from the Arizona department of health and this was in regard to prescribing medical marijuana.

When I first got out of residency, I took a job in which I would prescribe medical marijuana to people with chronic medical conditions.

It was actually a lot of fun and one of my favorite jobs in healthcare to date.

The reason for the complaint was that in order to prescribe medical marijuana to any patient doctors are required to look up a history of a patient’s prescription medications.

The idea was that doctors needed to check to see if patients were getting scheduled narcotics and other painkillers from various types of doctors in an effort to abuse the system.

There is an online database that shows this information. Doctors who prescribe medical marijuana are supposed to check this database before they prescribe it.

And I never did. Not once. And because they track how often you look into the database, they were able to see that I never checked it.

Why? Well, because I never thought it was necessary for the people that I was treating.

For one, I have a good sense of whether or not a patient is lying.

For another, medical marijuana has been shown to help REDUCE dependence on narcotics.

And because narcotics are much more dangerous than marijuana, I knew that it would be healthier for a patient to use fewer narcotics and MORE marijuana.

If this wasn’t enough reason not to check the database, let’s take a look at Arizona law now.

It’s now 100% legal to purchase marijuana over the counter.

People who are getting marijuana now don’t need to check the database. Why does it make sense that a doctor would need to do this before prescribing it to patients?

I think it’s a rather silly complaint but I did make the mistake.

Did it harm anyone? No.

Was it dangerous? I would argue not at all.

But this second complaint just added fuel to the fire.

Because of both of these complaints, I elected to surrender my medical license instead of trying to “fight” the medical board.

It was a battle I wasn’t going to win due to a number of reasons, especially the way that I used to practice medicine.

So that’s the story!

The result is that I am no longer able to practice medicine in Arizona but I have the opportunity to re-apply after 5 years.

This surrendering of my medical license in Arizona does not prohibit me from being licensed in other states and it also doesn’t prohibit me from re-obtaining my medical license in Arizona at a later date.

I still believe that the information and products that I provide are the best out there and so I will continue to help thyroid patients and people who need it.

I’m not one to quit or be bullied, so I plan to keep on going.

If you have any questions or concerns about this information please feel free to reach out and I would be happy to provide more/additional information!

0
Your Cart
Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop
Calculate Shipping