Metrowest Medical Center

State sanctions former MetroWest Medical Center surgeon

A former MetroWest Medical Center surgeon was sanctioned this week by the state Board of Registration in Medicine after a series of missteps, two of which involved patients dying while under her care.

Kathaleen Porter's license to practice medicine was permanently restricted by the board. She is now only allowed to practice surgery as an assistant and may not take a call or cover for another surgeon, according to the ruling.

According to documents sent by the Board of Registration in Medicine, two patients under Porter's care at MetroWest Medical Center died within nine months of each other in 2007.

Beth Donnelly, a spokeswoman for MetroWest Medical Center, declined to comment specifically about the doctor yesterday except to say that Porter has not worked at the hospital since late 2007.

Porter, 59, graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1980 and has been licensed to practice since 1985. She is board-certified in surgery and surgical critical care.

The documents state that she was affiliated with MetroWest Medical Center from 1999 until 2007, when the hospital denied her reappointment because of competence or professional conduct issues.

Donnelly said MetroWest Medical Center has an intensive screening process for candidates for surgical and other medical positions.

"The safety of our patients is our number one concern," she said. "We have a highly defined credentialing process."

She said a multi-level review committee with various specialties and certifications reviews applicants.

"And in cases of variances," she said, "the hospital acts on the recommendations of the peer-review committee and credentialing committee in a process based on state regulations."

Court documents list four instances from 1999 to 2007 when the board deemed that Porter's treatment of patients called "into question her competence to perform surgery as the primary surgeon."

During the first incident, in November 1999, Porter made an error during a gastric-bypass surgery on a patient who later developed complications. Porter, the documents state, did not immediately perform surgery to fix the problem.

The second documented incident, according to board documents, was when Porter was the on-call surgeon covering MetroWest Medical Center's Framingham and Natick campuses. An 84-year-old man went to the emergency room at the Natick campus on Dec. 30, 2006, with nausea, vomiting and a bulging mass in his groin.

MetroWest Medical Center awarded Betsy Lehman Patient Safety ...

MetroWest Medical Center is a 2010 recipient of the Betsy Lehman Patient Safety Recognition Award for improving care and reducing readmissions in congestive heart failure patients, according to MetroWest Daily News. 

The article states that MetroWest Medical, along with Newton-Wellesley Hospital are participating in a multistate pilot program to lower admission rates, funded by The Commonwealth Fund and overseen by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. 

MetroWest Medical was able to reduce heart failure readmissions from 26.2% to the low teens.  Changes made to achieve this goal include:

The Comparative Guide to American Hospitals, Volume 1, Eastern Region: 4,383 Hospitals with Key Personnel and 24 Quality Measures in Treating Heart Attack, Heart Failure, Pneumonia, Pregnancy and Surgical Infection Prevention

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