Episode 3: The Gatekeepers

Marquita Baird has kept a bootbox full of medical records on a shelf in her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma for over two decades in the hope that, someday, someone would ask about what happened after an OB-GYN named Thomas J. Byrne performed a hysterectomy on her in 1999. Shawnee was one of several areas where Byrne would practice in the years after losing his medical license in New York. 

In Episode 3: The Gatekeepers, we examine the responsibility that state medical boards have in keeping doctors with a history of bad outcomes from treating patients. And we speak with the executive directors of the New Mexico and Oklahoma medical boards, both of which granted Byrne licenses after he lost the ability to practice in New York.

Hear our earlier episodes:

Episode 1: Wrongful Death

Episode 2: License Revoked