Taliban Justice:  An Amerikan Gulag  (x 4)

Attachment 4. Stripes and Times articles
(August 14, 2000)
Army Whistleblower Survives Bureaucratic Nightmare
By Ed Offley
Stars and Stripes Washington Bureau Chief

"I'm happy to be back," said Army Dr. Stephen Whitlock Smith. "It's
fun to be taking care of patients again."
The 52-year-old lieutenant colonel was not talking about a return
from vacation or temporary duty when interviewed by phone late last
week from his office at Madigan Army Medical Center near Fort Lewis,
Wash.
Smith was referring to his return to normalcy after seven years of
hell as an Army whistleblower.
His ordeal began when Smith was transferred to the Army's Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center in Germany in mid-1993 to direct the
hospital's emergency department. Smith said upon that arrival at
Landstuhl he found an emergency room suffering from acute staff
shortages, aging equipment and inadequate supplies to the extent that
he and other doctors there feared for the safety of patients and
medical staff alike.
But his attempts to fix a bad situation backfired. Instead of
support, Smith says he drew the wrath of his direct superiors.
Since 1996, Smith has been engaged in a protracted struggle with the
Army Medical Command leadership over what he says were illegal
reprisals taken against him after he formally complained about the
situation at Landstuhl. These include a forcible transfer from
Germany to Madigan; incarceration in a locked psychiatric ward
without a medical hearing for three weeks; illegal manipulation of
his medical records, and punitive restriction of his medical
privileges.
In turn, Smith fought back, demanding and receiving a Defense
Department Inspector General probe of Landstuhl. His case attracted
the interest and concern of several powerful members of Congress. He
filed administrative and criminal complaints against those he
believes have illegally retaliated against him for the Landstuhl
incident.
And after several years of administrative limbo, Smith is claiming
moral victory.
Fearing an Army attempt to sabotage his medical credentials, Smith
also won approval of a civilian medical license from the state of
Washington under a "whistleblower category" where state officials
conducted an independent review without waiting for a formal Army
recommendation.
And recently the Army-while not admitting error of wrongdoing against
him-reissued "full unrestricted" internal medicine credentials to
Smith and invited him to return to full-time duty at Madigan Army
Medical Center, where he manages the acute care facility in its Adult
Primary Care Clinic.
"As far as I know I'm a normal Army doctor," Smith explained. "I have
a fully restored status and am fully deployable with no restrictions
on assignments."
But there is still a hint of bitterness in his voice when Smith
recounts the events of the past half-decade.
A Hospital in Crisis
Smith's ordeal began in his first year at Landstuhl during 1993-94,
when the medical center began taking on broad new responsibilities
with the deactivation of major Army units as the Pentagon slashed the
troop level in Europe by 200,000 personnel. Smith and his staff
realized that at their current manning they were ill-prepared to
handle the potential emergency demand. "It was the scariest
professional experience that any of us had ever thought we'd be
involved in," Smith later said.
Smith said that he and his emergency room staff pleaded for more
physicians and supplies. ER personnel were working up to 60 hours a
week for prolonged periods. At one point, a psychiatric nurse was
assigned to the ER to monitor symptoms of suicidal behavior among
staff members as a result of work-related stress.
After two years of fruitless requests, Smith in desperation filed an
official complaint with the local Army inspector general-outside of
his direct chain of command-accusing his Army superiors of failing to
correct the problems.
When Smith reported to Landstuhl in July 1993, it was his third stint
as the head of an emergency room facility. He had held the same job
at a civilian hospital in Rhode Island and then, after receiving his
commission, had been chief at an Army hospital in Denver.
Smith and his family initially were excited about moving to Germany.
"We enjoyed it for the day trips and weekend tours," Smith
recalled. "It's the very best part of Europe to go touring from
because everything is so close, whether France or the Bavarian Alps
or the rest of Germany."
But the demands of work quickly began to crowd out family life, Smith
said.
Two years after the end of Operation Desert Storm, Landstuhl was
designated as the trauma center for all U.S. military forces in
Europe, including troops deployed outside Europe to crisis areas such
as Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days
a week.
Under Army policies, Smith's emergency room was supposed to have at
least seven full-time certified ER physicians. But during the summer
of his arrival at Landstuhl, the number dropped to four when
departing physicians were not replaced.
The situation was unchanged 10 months later when, in May 1994, Lt.
Col. David Gillingham arrived at Landstuhl as the new chief of
ambulatory care and Smith's immediate superior.
Brief Rapport
"I thought we would get along fine," said Smith, who was assigned to
be Gillingham's sponsor to help with his processing and moving
needs. "I picked him up at the airport and introduced him to the
community."
The cordiality lasted only one week.
Smith said Gillingham rejected his request for additional ER staffing
even after being told the physicians were being forced to work 50-60
hours per week. Smith himself was forced to work 60-70 hours a week
to cover both ER shifts and his administrative duties.
At a meeting to discuss the ER staffing shortage, Gillingham's
reaction stunned and angered Smith.
"Gillingham presided over the meeting and ordered me 'to work the ER
doctors into the ground,'" Smith recalled. He quoted Gillingham as
saying of the young doctors, "They are cannon fodder and have to pay
back [for] their training." The stress took a toll on everyone
working in the emergency room, including Smith.
Smith, who has battled clinical depression for most of his life, said
at one point he was hospitalized for nervous exhaustion. "I don't
dispute the fact that I became depressed as a result of the
situation," he said.
In July of that year, the number of available ER physicians fell from
four to three after a junior physician suffered a nervous breakdown,
Smith said. Landstuhl officials temporarily eased the situation by
rotating other doctors into the ER for several months.
Smith's senior non-commissioned officer at Landstuhl, now-retired
Sgt. 1st Class Stanley Gaines, said in an interview last year that
hospital commanders refused to take steps to find qualified
physicians for the emergency room. He also said they attempted to
pressure doctors to minimize medical care to non-military patients.
"We didn't have the amount of staff to adequately take care of our
patients," said Gaines, who now lives in Tyler, Texas. "I don't know
the real reason, but we weren't getting supported and people didn't
care."
By mid-1994, Landstuhl was treating more than 23,000 emergency cases
a year-an average of 63 per day-but receiving administrative credit
for less than half that number, Smith said.
Smith accused his supervisor Gillingham, who also ran the hospital's
family clinic, of diverting budget money and staffing positions from
the emergency room by falsely claiming that more than 11,000 of the
ER cases had actually been treated at the family clinic. Smith said
this enabled Gillingham to obtain money and staffing support his
facility otherwise would not have received.
That winter, Smith tried repeatedly to obtain support from his
commanders to prevent another ER staffing crisis in the summer months
when many physicians on temporary assignment to Landstuhl normally
returned to their home bases. Smith said he was promised in February
1995 that the number of certified ER physicians would be kept at a
minimum of five-still two below the Army minimum of seven.
Confronting His Superiors
In May and June 1995, two events occurred at Landstuhl that set Smith
on a course of confrontation with his senior officers.
On May 8, Smith reported that the beeper system for contacting on-
call ER doctors had failed the day before at a time the emergency
room experienced several major trauma cases.
"We couldn't call in the specialists we needed to save lives," Smith
said. "In the spring, Germany is a beautiful place, and the
specialists are going to be out...depending on their beepers if there
is an emergency."
Smith requested an immediate replacement of the system. His bosses
did not respond.
Less than a month later, while on duty as an ER physician, Gillingham
treated a 17-year-old civilian, the son of an Army contract employee,
who had suffered a head injury, Smith said.
Smith and Gaines say Gillingham sent the boy home with a written
diagnosis of abrasions even though the youth had sustained prolonged
loss of consciousness, had a severe headache and had no memory of the
event-symptoms of a serious injury.
The next day, the youth was rushed back to Smith's emergency room in
a coma.
Smith says the emergency room beeper system failed again and the on-
call neurosurgeon could not be located. In desperation, staff members
rushed the unconscious youth to another medical facility about 50
miles away for emergency brain surgery.
The teen-ager suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the
incident, according to the Hilton Head Island, S.C., Packet, his
hometown newspaper.
Malpractice Claim
According to a 1999 account in the newspaper, the boy's family filed
a $7.5 million claim against the Army, alleging malpractice. The Army
judge advocate general's office ruled that the hospital had not acted
improperly. The Army has final review of claims filed against the
service's overseas facilities.
After the office of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., intervened, the
family was offered a settlement, a spokeswoman for Thurmond said.
Details of the settlement were not released and Thurmond's office
declined comment last week.
Back in Germany, things continued to get worse for Smith and his
emergency room staff. In September 1995, NATO carried out a fierce
air campaign in Bosnia that paved the way for the deployment of
40,000 U.S. and NATO troops into the former Yugoslavia province.
Landstuhl was earmarked to handle any seriously injured peacekeepers.
In a memo to Col. Kevin Kiley, then commander of Landstuhl, Smith
said U.S. casualties would overwhelm his emergency room.
The dispute between Smith and his staff on one side, and higher-ups
at Landstuhl on the other, continued to simmer. On Feb. 12, 1996,
Smith formally submitted his complaint to the local inspector general
at Landstuhl accusing Kiley of tolerating violations of standards
established by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations. The independent commission evaluates both civilian and
military hospitals for correct standards of practice and
administration.
Smith's complaint charged that Landstuhl officials were endangering
patients by purposely understaffing the emergency room and that his
requests for additional doctors were repeatedly ignored.
Two hours later, Kiley stripped Smith of his medical credentials and
ordered his immediate transfer to Madigan. Smith said different
officials at Landstuhl told him different things. At first, he
believed he would remain at Madigan for a brief medical checkup
before returning to Germany. Other Landstuhl officials indicated
Kiley had ordered a permanent transfer.
"The paperwork was pretty confusing, as well," Smith said.
One assistant to Smith said the transfer was a reprisal.
"It was done very viciously," said Gaines, the senior sergeant in
Smith's emergency room. "He [Smith] wasn't being supported by his
superiors and made some calls they didn't like, so they struck out at
him instead of solving the problem."
Smith packed his bags.
Incarcerated at Madigan
Twelve days after the confrontation with Kiley, Smith arrived for
duty at Madigan on Feb. 24, 1996, expecting to be temporarily
assigned to the hospital staff.
To his shock, Smith was locked up in the hospital psychiatric wing.
"They handed me the pajamas that patients wear who are not allowed
out, and they told me I had to hand over all of my possessions except
for my uniform," Smith recounted. "I was stunned."
In a subsequent complaint to the Pentagon inspector general, Smith
produced records from his trip from Germany to Madigan that show he
stopped at Army Medical Command offices in Washington, D.C., to meet
with officials on routine business. He said there was no indication
on his travel orders that he was to be placed under medical
supervision or restraint.
Smith was released from the Madigan psychiatric unit after three
weeks, and was surprised when Madigan's officials invited him to join
the ER staff there. He had his medical credentials restored in full
after several weeks. "It was as if the whole episode had not even
happened," Smith said.
Smith said the incarceration violated numerous Army regulations
because there was neither a formal hearing nor any written orders
committing him to the secure ward. He believes Kiley made a telephone
call to Madigan officials that led to his incarceration.
Madigan officials have declined comment on any specifics of Smith's
complaints, including the hospitalization, insisting that no patients
are locked up without due process.
More Reprisals
But when Smith continued in the following months to press for Army
and Pentagon investigations into Landstuhl, he said, Madigan
officials began engaging in reprisals against him.
Smith said that in 1997 his medical credentials were restricted-he
was allowed only to perform routine procedures under direct
supervision of another doctor-after officials learned that the
independent newspaper Army Times was investigating his case. And in
September 1998, during a visit to Madigan by Dr. Sue Bailey,
assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Smith said he was
forcibly detained by a security guard and dragged from the area when
he approached Bailey, an acquaintance from medical school.
Smith filed a criminal complaint with the Fort Lewis criminal
investigative detachment as a result of the dragging incident.
Several weeks later, he said, Brig. Gen. Mack Hill, then-commander of
Madigan Army Medical Center, again restricted his medical practice
rights. Hill, like other Army officials, declined to comment when
contacted by a reporter last December.
Smith remained in limbo for more than a year until a credentials
committee at Madigan last February voted to restore his credentials.
Smith said he refused to accept the decision for five months,
however, while attempting to have what he says are false and
erroneous materials removed from his personnel file.
A Partial Vindication
The Army, citing the privileged nature of most of the material
involved, including Smith's own medical records, has declined to
comment on the case since it first became public knowledge last year.
An investigation into Smith's original complaint filed with the local
Army inspector general at Landstuhl and a review of working
conditions there by the Army's European Medical Command found no
evidence to support his allegations, officials said.
But a subsequent review during 1998-99 by Col. Joseph Smith, an Army
Medical Command headquarters inspector, did confirm Smith's
allegations of poor leadership by his immediate superiors that led
to "a variety of problems" in the Landstuhl emergency room, a
Pentagon report later stated.
"The inspecting officer concluded that two supervisory physicians
[Gillingham and a second Army officer, according to Smith] were
responsible for these problems and recommended that they be issued
letters of reprimand," the DoD Inspector General report noted. The
Army, however, declined to take that action, arguing that the
evidence "does not support" such punishment, even though the European
Regional Medical Command admitted that serious problems had indeed
existed in the Landstuhl emergency department.
Such victories were small comfort to Smith. The stresses of his
ordeal placed tremendous pressure on his family life, he said. At one
point last year, Smith took his family therapist's suggestion and
temporarily moved out of his home.
Deeply in debt from legal expenses, Smith said the only temporary
housing he could afford was a tent staked at a campsite at North Fort
Lewis, where he lived for six months until he could afford an
apartment.
When Hill retired as Madigan commander last month, relief appeared in
the form of Col. Tony Carter, who is serving as interim commander
until October.
Smith said he was relieved when Carter approached him and offered him
the chance to return to his duties full-time without fear of further
reprisals.
"He claimed not to have seen my credentials records and claimed not
to care about my credentials records," said Smith, referring to the
inaccurate materials he is still attempting to have removed.
Mike Gaffney, a prominent Washington, D.C., attorney who has worked
with Smith since 1997 and has been involved with several other major
military whistleblower cases in the past decade, said Smith's ordeal
reflects a "fairly serious" breakdown in military discipline.
"The restoration of his credentials constitutes a victory over those
who sought to retaliate against him for his whistle-blowing," Gaffney
said Aug. 9.
Return to Duty
On July 11, Smith agreed to Carter's invitation, formally accepted
his medical privileges and returned to Madigan nine days later.
Carter, the interim Madigan commander, said in a brief interview that
the incident has been "quite an experience" for Smith, the hospital
staff and the Army, but added that he is glad that Smith has returned
to full-time medical duty.
"The process seems to be going well and he seems happy," Carter said.
Smith has requested early retirement from the Army so that he


can resume his medical career in the private sector, but is resigned
to the possibility that it will be denied.
"I have three more years on active duty before I reach 20 years,"
Smith said this week. "Maybe they will leave me alone for three
years."
Two of the three Army officials Smith accuses of improper actions at
Landstuhl remain on active duty, including Kiley, the former
Landstuhl commander. He is a two-star general serving as commanding
general and commandant of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and
School at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
Gillingham, Smith's direct superior at Landstuhl, recently finished a
one-year tour at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. He could
not be reached for comment.

Play by the rules (report sub-standard conditions to the Army Inspector General under the command of General Kevin Kiley) and lose by being imprisoned on a psych ward for obeying the law? Impossible, you say? Read this and then enlist if you dare. Click here.

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Three more gulag cases:

Timms and McGonigle

Dr. Voge

This letter is a formal request for Whistleblower Protection for two
Active Duty Physicians in deployable specialties who have reported
being under medical credentials reprisal by certain elements of their
respective commands.

Whistleblower Protection Request Case # 1: Stephen Whitlock Smith,
MD, Lieutenant Colonel, Emergency and Internal Medicine Physician on
Active Duty with the US Army Medical Corps

Whistleblower Protection Request Case #2: Eric Gluck, MD, Lieutenant
Commander, Laparoscopic Surgeon on Active Duty with the US Navy
Medical Corps

Details follow

----------------------------------------------------------
30 January 2002

General Richard B. Myers
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20318-9999
Telephone 703-697-4272, FAX 703-697-8758

Subject: Could Wartime Retention of Army Doctors Be Harmed by
Credentials Reprisal of US Military Physicians in the Deployable
Specialties of Emergency Medicine and Surgery?

Joint Request for Whistleblower Protection for Two Active Duty
Physicians

Dear General Myers:

This letter is a formal request for Whistleblower Protection for two
Active Duty Physicians in deployable specialties who have reported
being under medical credentials reprisal by certain elements of their
respective commands.

Whistleblower Protection Request Case # 1: Stephen Whitlock Smith,
MD, Lieutenant Colonel, Emergency and Internal Medicine Physician on
Active Duty with the US Army Medical Corps

Sir, you already know my case from my correspondence to you of 8
January 2002, and todays report is my update containing new
evidence that apparent violations of Regulation and Statute have
indeed occurred.

In summary, I am a Vietnam Conflict and Desert Storm Veteran. I
received all of my medical training from the US Army: Medical School
Army Scholarship at George Washington University, Residency Training
in Internal Medicine at Fort Gordon, and Residency Training in
Emergency Medicine at Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis,
Washington, where I am presently assigned.

I was Major General Kevin Kiley's Chief of Emergency Medicine at
Landstuhl and reported to him and others the following dangers to our
emergency patients:
1) Orders by his subordinates in his name for physicians to
abandon care of critically ill patients
2) Repeated maintenance failures of beeper systems contributing
to the unnecessary brain injury of a child
3) Repeated maintenance failures of obsolete ambulances, while
new ambulances were being diverted to the black market
4) Later, the death of a two-week-old female infant left to die
needlessly against the request of Congressman Henry Hyde (on file
with Congressman Dicks and Senator Thurmonds offices)

Department of Defense Inspector General Report number 67218
corroborated my report of cases to General Kiley. The findings blamed
two officers under General Kiley's command for the problem (sentinel)
cases, and I believe that these officers did not properly inform
General Kiley of the facts.

I received a Meritorious Service Medal from Major General Kevin Kiley
for my courage in reporting these tragic cases. I learned
tremendously after my courageous act of filing a formal Inspector
General complaint on behalf of General Kiley's command at Landstuhl.
I believe that my actions protected him and his command and the
patients from any more sentinel events in that TriCare Region, in
ways that are even now being realized.

The interrogations resulting from my original Inspector General
report caused some elements of the past Madigan Army Medical Center
Command great anger towards me for being the Army whistleblower
responsible. Fortunately for my family and me I won the resulting
credentials reprisal case that the past Madigan Commander had
launched against me simultaneously with the start of the Department
of Defense Inspector Generals entry into the Landstuhl case.

The tone changed markedly with Madigans change of commanders. I was
awarded Category IV Unrestricted Credentials by the current Madigan
Army Medical Center Command and was guaranteed a special rating chain
to preserve my Whistleblower Protection. Certain errors in my
professional files may have occurred during the same time period as
the Landstuhl Whistleblower cases were being reported, and the
current Madigan Command promised to honor my Privacy Act rights to
correct such errors. Past Army Surgeon General Lieutenant General Ron
Blanck respected my Privacy Act and Whistleblower Protection rights
by expunging officially some dozens of documents which had been
placed unlawfully into my Madigan Credentials records, some by
persons unknown or unacknowledged.

During my Privacy Act research, I found that my wartime service
records from Vietnam and Desert Storm were missing from various
records, and I appealed recently to the same Major General Kevin
Kiley, my former Commander and now the Chief of Medical Corps Branch,
for assistance. General Kiley has replied that he will assist me.

Meanwhile, a marked and unwelcome alteration to my Medical
Credentials File maintained at Madigan Army Medical Center was
detected on 14 January 2002. An apparently spurious document was on
top of two evaluations of my credentials performance by two past
supervisors, while any evaluations by my current official
supervisors were missing. The document in question resembles a DA
Form 5374-R Performance Assessment. It appears to bear the signature
block of an officer very junior to myself who is not in my rating
chain, and shows the period covered as 16 July 1999 (one year before
the junior officer in question even arrived at Madigan) through 15
July 2001. It shows an X but without the required initials, marking
UNSATISFACTORY boxes under the following categories: emotional
stability, professional conduct, ethical conduct, leadership, and
participation. My title as Acute Care Physician for Department of
Medicine is left unmentioned, and the boilerplate insertion in the
Comments section reminding of the requirement that unsatisfactory
areas should be addressed is left unanswered and blank. There are
other variations that make the document stand out as not lawfully
constituted, not authentic. I met with COL Virgil Deal, Commander of
Madigan, who denied any previous knowledge of the document in
question.

Whoever placed such a document in my credentials file, in the Page
One position on top of other evaluations of me that I recognized as
authentic, did so in a way sure to embarrass the Command if there
were an inspection. Moreover, an unsuspecting credentials clerk might
possibly read the form over the phone to my future prospective
employers.

I respectfully request that my Madigan Army Medical Center
Credentials Records be rid of any unlawful documents and restored to
the Category IV Unrestricted Credentials as promised by the current
Madigan Command in response to my lawful request that the Privacy
Act, Whistleblower Protection, and all other guarantees of
Regulation, Directive, and Law.

Whistleblower Protection Request Case #2: Eric Gluck, MD, Lieutenant
Commander, Laparoscopic Surgeon on Active Duty with the US Navy
Medical Corps

Dr. Eric Gluck, a Jewish active duty Navy Laparoscopic surgeon with
affiliation to Yale Medical School, was doing Laparoscopic surgery at
Groton Naval Hospital for 3 years until 2000, and saved between 2 and
4 million TriCare dollars compared to what civilian physicians would
have charged TriCare to perform traditional (non-Laparoscopic)
surgery. Previous Navy surgeons assigned to Groton did not have the
years of specialty laparoscopic training that Dr. Gluck has. The Navy
had agreed to pay Dr. Gluck a $40,000 yearly bonus because the
laparoscopic surgical training allows Navy hospital to treat more
complicated cases in house. This saves the US Government money.

Reportedly, civilian surgeons at Backus Hospital (Groton,
Connecticut) objected to their loss of millions of dollars of TriCare
income because an active duty Naval surgeon was doing laparoscopic
surgery in house at the Naval Hospital, instead of referring the
business to them.

Reportedly, the Commander of Groton Naval Hospital suspended Dr.
Gluck's hospital privileges for more than one year, apparently bowing
to secret pressure from the civilian surgeons. There is even
documentary evidence provided that the Commander ordered the
interception of a US Postal Service letter addressed to Dr. Gluck
with the apparent motive of causing a lapse in his hospital
privileges at Backus Hospital when the letter was delayed until after
the credentials renewal expiration date.

Documents are attached which appear to corroborate that the Groton
Naval Hospital Inspector General LCDR Helmholz found many violations
of Naval Regulations in the way that Dr. Gluck's medical privileges
were removed. (See attached Bad Faith Peer Review Ignores Due Process
Right Groton Naval Hospital Inspector General Report 8 May 2001.)

Reportedly, the Groton Naval Hospital Commander suppressed the
Inspector General report, and apparently disobeyed its direction,
refusing to allow Dr. Gluck to volunteer his surgical services in
support of the War on Terrorism and is reportedly now threatening Dr.
Gluck with Court-Martial on the basis of an anonymous complaint which
remains mysterious. Dr. Gluck remains on Active Duty at Groton, but
the Commander is still apparently refusing to restore his full
credentials and his $40,000 Professional Pay.

Apparent misinformation was provided to Dr. Glucks civilian attorney
by the Command:
1) An apparent promise that the civilian attorneys fees would
be at least partially paid by the Navy, and
2) A reported communication to the same attorney in the recent
past that Dr. Gluck had indeed been paid his Professional Pay, while
such pay is in fact still being withheld. The apparent reason for
these items of misinformation supplied to Dr. Glucks attorney was
allegedly to produce disharmony and financial disagreement between
Dr. Gluck and his capable civilian attorney. This has apparently lead
to a dispute in which the attorney is suing Dr. Gluck for
approximately $100,000 on 4 February 2002.

A summary of issues is the following:
1) Alleged anti-Semitism
2) Alleged fraud, waste, and abuse, and reprisal against a Naval
surgeon for saving the US Government more than 2 million dollars
3) Alleged suppression of an Inspector General report
4) Alleged Continuing reprisal against Dr. Gluck, by denial of
full credentials and $40,000 yearly Professional Pay, because Dr.
Gluck saved more than 2 million dollars of the taxpayer's money in
house
5) Alleged false information supplied by Dr. Glucks Command to
his civilian attorney to reduce Dr. Glucks credibility with his
capable attorney

SUMMARY: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse of Deployable Medical Personnel
Resources
In the days before 11 September 2001, past Army Surgeon General Ron
Blanck estimated that numbers of Army physicians were below 60% of
that required to maintain readiness. The specialty training that the
US Government has provided to each healthcare provider in deployable
specialties like Emergency Medicine and Surgery has cost US taxpayers
many tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars over many years. The
two cases chronicled in this report indicate that waste, fraud, and
abuse in the form of meaningless credentials reprisal is being
perpetrated upon military physicians who are utilizing their
specialty training to make or recommend quality improvements within
the purview of their expertise. Moreover, these happenings involve
apparent violations of Whistleblower Protection, Regulations,
Department of Defense Directives, Standards of the Joint Commission
on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and Statutes, all of
which were established to prevent the waste, fraud, and abuse that
has been described. Why would physicians with wartime specialty
training stay in the military as a career if credentials reprisal
were unopposed by law.

As a proud member of your American military organization, and as a
Veteran of both the Vietnam Conflict and the Gulf War, I respectfully
request your oversight of investigation and your consideration of
redress of these wrongs.

Points of contact are as follows:
Dr. Glucks home phone 860-448-0287
Groton Inspector General LTCR Helmholz 860-694-4123


Respectfully,

Stephen Whitlock Smith, MD
FACEP, FACP (elected 1991, 1994)
Lieutenant Colonel, US Army Medical Corps
Department of Medicine
Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis
Tacoma, Washington 98431
253-968-3528
Stephen.smith@nw.amedd.army.mil
















Attachments:
1) Apparently spurious unsatisfactory evaluation by a junior
officer not in the rating chain
2) True evaluation rating chain from Madigan Department of
Medicine records
3) STARS AND STRIPES article (14 August 2000) Army Whistleblower
Survives Bureaucratic Nightmare
4) ARMY TIMES article (February 1999) Fit for Duty Case of
Retribution
5) Bad Faith Peer Review Ignores Due Process Right, Naval
Ambulatory Care Center, Groton, Connecticut 23 (May 2001)
Cc:
Vice President Richard Cheney Fax 202-456-2461
General Eric K. Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff FAX 703-697-8758
Admiral Vern Clark, Chief of Naval Operations FAX 703-697-8758
DODIG Robert J. Lieberman FAX 703 604-8567
JCAHO Dennis S. O'Leary, MD 630-792-5005
GAO David M. Walker, Comptroller General FAX 202-371-2442
SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE Fax: 202-228-0036
DEMOCRATS Carl Levin (Michigan) 202-224-1388, Chairman, Edward M.
Kennedy (Massachusetts) 202-224-2417, Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
202-228-0002, Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut) 202-224-9750, Max
Cleland (Georgia) 202-224-0072 , Mary L. Landrieu (Louisiana) 202-224-
9735, Jack Reed (Rhode Island) 202-224-4680, Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
202-224-2126, Bill Nelson (Florida) 202-228-2183, E. Benjamin Nelson
(Nebraska) 202-228-0012, Jean Carnahan (Missouri) 202-228-1518, Mark
Dayton (Minnesota) 202-228-2186, Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico) 202-224-
2852;REPUBLICANS John Warner (Virginia) 202-224-6295, Ranking
Member , Strom Thurmond (South Carolina) 202-224-1300, John McCain
(Arizona) 202-228-2862 , Bob Smith (New Hampshire) 202-224-1353,
James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma) 202-228-0380 , Rick Santorum
(Pennsylvania) 202-228-0604, Pat Roberts (Kansas) 202-224-3514 ,
Wayne Allard (Colorado) 202-224-6471, Tim Hutchinson (Arkansas) 202-
228-3973, Jeff Sessions (Alabama) 202-224-3149, Susan M. Collins
(Maine) 202-224-2693, Jim Bunning (Kentucky) 202-228-1373
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE Fax: 202-225-9077
REPUBLICANS Bob Stump, (Arizona) Chairman 202-225-6328, Duncan
Hunter (California) 202-225-0235, James V. Hansen (Utah) 202-225-
5857, Curt Weldon (Pennsylvania) 202-225-8137, Joel Hefley (Colorado)
202-225-1942, Jim Saxton (New Jersey) 202-225-0778, John M. McHugh
(New York) 202-226-0621, Terry Everett (Alabama) 202-225-8913 ,
Roscoe G. Bartlett (Maryland) 202-225-2193, Howard "Buck" McKeon
(California) 202-226-0683, DEMOCRATS Ike Skelton (Missouri) 202-225-
2695, Ranking Member, John M. Spratt, Jr. (South Carolina) 202-225-
0464 , Solomon P. Ortiz (Texas) 202-226-1134, Lane Evans (Illinois)
202-225-5396 , Gene Taylor (Mississippi) 202-225-7074, Neil
Abercrombie (Hawaii) 202-225-4580, Martin T. Meehan (Massachusetts)
202-226-0771, Robert A. Underwood (Guam) 202-226-0341, Rod R.
Blagojevich (Illinois) 202-225-5603, Silvestre Reyes (Texas) 202-225-
2016
Attorneys at Law Ivan Johnson 253-627-2021, Mary Alice Leonardt 860-
249-8850
Record
Apparently spurious unsatisfactory evaluation by a junior officer
not in the
rating chain