The House unanimously approved Monday night a bill that would impose more regulations on licensing board investigations of doctors.

Under the proposal, at least two N.C. Medical Board members must agree to start an investigation, and the accused would have the opportunity to meet with the board before public charges are issued, Lynn Bonner reports.

The board licenses and disciplines the state's 32,000 doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners.

The bill went through considerable changes since the medical board raised strong objections to earlier versions.

"This is a different and much better bill than when it left the Senate," said Rep. Bob England, a Rutherford County Democrat.

He described the proposal as a concensus bill that will "clarify the due process of the licensee without interferring with patient protection."

The bill now goes back to the Senate.

A provision that "has given everybody heartburn" was removed Wednesday from a Senate bill that seeks to change the way the N.C. Medical Board investigates doctors for bad care or ethical breaches.

Sen. Martin Nesbitt Jr., a Democrat from Asheville who sponsored the bill, took out a particularly contentious requirement that the board line up two expert witnesses to agree on a practitioner's misbehavior, Sarah Avery reports.

Currently, the board gets one outside expert, and board officials vehemently opposed the additional requirement.

The bill moves forward in the Senate, but is likely to face additional changes and obstacles. In its current incarnation, the bill would require more communication between the board and doctors it investigates, board approval before investigations are launched, and a six-month timeline to begin and end probes.

Backed by a group of doctors who practice alternative medicine, the bill recently gained the support of the N.C. Medical Society. The doctor's lobby has increasingly been at odds with the medical board over doctor discipline issues.

The N.C. Supreme Court has ruled that doctors can be present at executions.

In a 4-3 decision authored by Justice Edward Thomas Brady, the court found that the N.C. Medical Board could not prohibit physicians from participating in the state's capital punishment procedures.

A state statute, "by its plain language, envisions physician participation in executions in some professional capacity," Brady wrote.

The medical board, a professional group that sets ethics rules for doctors, had barred doctors from monitoring inmates who were being put to death. In a lawsuit, the state Department of Correction argued that state law requiring doctors trumped the board's decision.

A Wake County Superior Court judge sided with the state in 2007, but executions remained in limbo while the case was being resolved. In today's ruling, the majority of the state Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's ruling.

In a dissent, Justices Robin Hudson and Patricia Timmons-Goodson and Chief Justice Sarah Parker argued the court should have let the legislature decide the issue.

The N.C. Supreme Court dove into the two-year stalemate in executions today by asking attorneys representing the state Department of Correction and the N.C. Medical Board to define what the state legislature meant in requiring that a doctor be present.

The debate over that word has created a de facto moratorium on executions in North Carolina. The correction department executes inmates on death row and is seeking to have a doctor take part in order to make sure the lethal injection is properly administered, Dan Kane reports.

That, the department contends, ensures that there has been no violation of Constitutional law against cruel and unusual punishment.

But the medical board contends that lawmakers only required doctors to attend to certify that an inmate was executed. Taking part in that execution, by monitoring an inmate's vital signs as correction officials want, would violate a doctor's basic mission to preserve life, the board has determined.

Several justices on the court peppered the attorneys with questions during the hour-long hearing.

More after the jump.

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The N.C. Supreme Court will hear legal arguments today about capital punishment.

The case could break a two-year stalemate on executions in North Carolina or extend a de facto moratorium caused when docotrs refused to participate.

Under state law, a doctor must be on hand during an execution by lethal injection, but the N.C. Medical Board has prohibited doctors from taking part.

In March of 2007, the state Department of Correction filed a lawsuit, and state Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens sided with correction officials. The medical board has appealed.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, which is representing corrections officials, said the state Supreme Court could settle the matter. She said there is no federal question for U.S. courts to pursue.

The last execution took place on Aug. 18, 2006. (N&O) 

A physician who served as the legislature's "Doctor of the Day" has been suspended for driving while impaired.

Dr. Bob Crummie drew attention for handing out a book he wrote, "Grocery Store Medicine and Healthy Life Anecdotes," while serving as legislative doctor in July.

The book claims that maternal rejection causes schizophrenia, homosexuality is a hoax and the lobotomy is not used enough.

On Thursday, the N.C. Medical Board suspended his license for unprofessional conduct. He will not be able to practice medicine for a month, though the suspension could be extended.

Crummie has been charged with driving while impaired three times. (Char-O)

A Superior Court judge ruled that the N.C. Medical Board does not have the right to discipline doctors who participate in executions.

In a six-page ruling, Judge Donald Stephens said the state's obligation to have a doctor present to give advice trumps the board's authority to ensure doctors are acting ethically, Titan Barksdale reports.

The board had said the doctors could be disciplined because executions violate their oath to preserve life. That decision led to a de facto moratorium that legislators declined to intervene in.

The N.C. Department of Correction and the medical board are adversaries in a lawsuit over the board's ethics policy that Stephens ruled on.

It's not clear at this point whether the ruling means executions can start up. But it was the first definitive word from a judge on the complex legal matters that put executions at a standstill for most of this year.

It looks like the Doctor of the Day may be in a bit of trouble.

David Ingram of The Charlotte Observer wrote last week about Dr. Bob Crummie of Rutherfordton, who used his recent stint as a volunteer physician at the legislature to hand out a book he had written that advocated greater use of the lobotomy, argued that penicillin and certain other anitibiotics should be sold without a prescription, and that schizophrenia is linked to rejection by one's mother.

Ingram reports today that Crummie faces some additional controversy.

The N.C. Medical Board, which licenses doctors, might discipline Crummie for action that "constitutes unprofessional conduct," according to charges brought by the board May 8.

Crummie was convicted of driving while intoxicated in Union County in 1997, according to the Medical Board. He was charged again with driving while intoxicated in Anson County in March 2006, with an open bottle of wine in his coat pocket, and he was charged a third time this year in Fayetteville.

Ingram reported that Crummie could not be reached for comment. But Crummie told the Medical Board's investigator that, "were it not for the present DWI laws, he would have a bar in his office and have a drink at the end of the day and a drink in his hand on his drive home," according to the board's charges.

House Democrats blocked an attempt to break the execution logjam.

Supporters of capital punishment tried to amend a bill on medical licenses to prevent the N.C. Medical Board from disciplining doctors who assist at executions. The threat of punishment has led to a de facto moratorium since earlier this year.

Along party lines, the House voted to block debate on the bill, letting the amendment die.

House Republican Leader Paul Stam criticized House leaders for stopping discussion.

"They want debate – except when they don't want debate," Stam said. (AP)

House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Democrat, said that he preferred to let litigation on the issue work its way through the courts. (Char-O)

North Carolina’s death penalty stalemate just got a 30-day extension.

One of the key lawsuits that has stalled the state’s executions will take a bit longer to resolve since the N.C. Medical Board got another 30 days to respond to the lawsuit filed against it by the N.C. Department of Correction, Andrea Weigl reports.

Instead of next week, the medical board will have until the first week in July to respond to the litigation.

Earlier this year, state prison officials sued to prohibit the N.C. Medical Board from disciplining doctors under the board’s new mandate that they may only observe, not monitor, executions.