SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2010
KLMNO
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C7 In Dupont, ‘people take the game in good spirits’ soccer from C1
Some fans wore USA or England T-shirts or sported soccer ball-shaped hats, but Dean Howarth, 45, and Jeff Jones, 33, phys- ics teachers from Arlington County, arrived in blue colonial frock coats and tri-corner hats. “The last big battle that was fought in this area, we sent England home,” Howarth said. “And we’re going to do it again.” Had he faced any challenges from the other side? “They’re kind of like laying low,” he said, “but that’s typical for Redcoats.” A few feet away, Emile Hoffman, 40, who had lived in England, dismissed the anti- England sentiments. “I support England because it’s really in their hearts,” he said. In England, “they’re glued to the screen. It’s maybe like this but five times bigger.” Once the game began, the crowd yelled with anticipation each time the ball neared the goal. Those who couldn’t see over the people in front of them peered into iPhones
to follow the game. Viewers ducked into the CVS across the street and found the shelves of bottled water nearly empty. England’s early goal elicited groans from U.S. fans, but when the United States scored, the circle exploded in a deafening roar. After almost two hours, the game ended in a tie and heat-addled fans streamed out, leaving the park strewn with water bottles, beer cans and a blanket or two. Chris Sweet, 39, a native of Pinner, Eng- land, who lives in Warrenton, had spent the afternoon outnumbered by the enemy. But he said that what he endured wearing an England T-shirt in Dupont was nothing compared with the hostility an American would have faced in his homeland. “I got a little abuse. I got drinks thrown at me. But it was all in good spirit, and that’s a good thing about here in the States: People take the game in good spirits,” he said. “So hats off to Washington, D.C., for making this such a wonderful game.”
bahrampourt@washpost.com
PHOTOS BY MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST On a steamy Saturday in the District, hundreds of soccer fans gather in Dupont Circle to watch World Cup action on big screens. Some of them arrived at dawn to secure a prime viewing spot for several matches.
Md. medical board files charges against cardiologist
The board charges, lodged after by Tricia Bishop
The regulatory board responsi- ble for licensing doctors in Mary- land has filed administrative charges against a Towson cardiol- ogist accused of performing hun- dreds of unnecessary procedures, beginning a process that could strip him of the authority to prac- tice medicine in the state. In a 19-page document made public Friday, the Maryland Board of Physicians accuses Dr. Mark G. Midei of “gross overutil- ization of health care services” and “willfully making a false re- port or record in the practice of medicine,” among other viola- tions of state law. Midei, who ran the cardiac
catheterization lab at St. Joseph Medical Center until last year, is alleged to have put stents in the arteries of patients who did not need them. He is also accused of falsifying medical records to make it appear that the patients were candidates for the expensive — and sometimes dangerous — procedure.
If the board’s charges are up- held, Midei could be fined and lose his medical license. Board members have scheduled a con- ference Aug. 4 to discuss the case with Midei at their Baltimore of- fices. A statement e-mailed Friday to the Baltimore Sun by Midei’s spokesman said: “We have just re- ceived the letter from the Mary- land Board of Physicians and we are in the process of reviewing it. We continue to stand by our prior statements that Dr. Mark Midei’s care was appropriate. We look for- ward to future discussions with the board.”
an investigation of patient rec- ords, provide the first independ- ent verification of complaints made more than a year ago to board members and to the staff at St. Joseph, which revoked Midei’s hospital privileges last summer after its own investigation.
Warning letters The Towson hospital has sent
letters to 585 of Midei’s patients — out of 2,000 cases it reviewed — warning them that their stent procedures might have been un- warranted, needlessly exposing them to the risk of death from blood clots and the effects of a lifetime of taking blood-thinning drugs. Midei, who is also being investi-
gated by a separate state commit- tee and is a subject in at least two federal inquiries, has said that he expects to be exonerated. Court papers filed on his behalf in re- sponse to a malpractice lawsuit suggest that the allegations against him have been inflated by attorneys.
Some supporters have contend-
ed in letters to the Sun that Midei is being framed by a former col- league; others credit Midei with saving their lives. “I asked for and felt very fortu-
nate to have my procedures done by Dr. Midei,” wrote Bill Gavin, who received a stent in 2004, in an e-mail to the Sun. “I would ask for him again without any hesita- tion.”
According to the Board of Phy- sicians’ charging document signed Monday, Midei regularly overestimated the level of nar- rowing, or “stenosis,” patients had in their arteries. “He expressed a little bit of sur-
prise” when told by a St. Joseph review committee that he had an “established pattern of overesti- mating,” the document states. In a statement e-mailed to the Sun on Friday, St. Joseph said it has cooperated in the Board of Physicians’ investigation, but de- clined to comment further. The board’s investigation in- cluded detailed reviews of five of Midei’s cases. In each, Midei wrote in the patient’s records that they suffered from an 80 percent blockage of a coronary artery, which needed to be propped open with a stent. But a subsequent re- view of X-ray images showed less than 50 percent blockage. Clinical guidelines generally
suggest that an artery be at least 70 percent blocked before a stent is placed, and St. Joseph’s rules consider anything less than a 50 percent blockage to be “insig- nificant.”
Doctor’s shorthand Midei explained the discrepan-
cy by saying that he routinely used certain percentages — 70, 80, 90 percent — as shorthand to signify mild, moderate or signifi- cant blockage, the document says. But he conceded after reviewing his cases that there were “signifi- cantly lower percentages of steno- sis than he had initially dictated at the time of the procedure.” Midei also told hospital staff
that he considered other clinical symptoms aside from test results when determining whether to place a stent, according to the charging document. But a St. Jo- seph review committee found that, in some cases, there were no “sufficient clinical indications to support the need.” The first hint of trouble came in
November 2008, when the board received an anonymous com- plaint from someone claiming to be a St. Joseph employee and ac- cusing Midei of “medical fraud,” the charging document says. The person gave the board a list of 36 stent procedures that were sup- posedly unnecessary, performed between July and November of that year. The accuser reiterated the allegations in late April 2009, in a letter that purported to list 41 other unwarranted stent pro- cedures.
Board Executive Director C. Ir- ving Pinder Jr. said members re- ceive about 2,000 complaints per year and follow up on all of them. Aformal investigation by a board- selected peer review group began in mid-2009, according to the charging documents, after St. Jo- seph alerted the board that it had suspended Midei’s privileges to practice at the hospital. Typically in such investiga- tions, 10 to 12 cases are selected for a random review conducted by a peer group, in this case two doc- tors in the cardiology field. They reviewed records that were inde- pendent from a federal investiga- tion and the internal examination done at St. Joseph, Pinder said. “We decided that we wanted to do our own” inquiry, he said. The board, which is responsible for licensing and disciplining state physicians, charged Midei with violating the Maryland Med- ical Practice Act through unpro- fessional conduct, false reports, overusing health-care services, failing to maintain proper records and providing substandard qual- ity of care. “This is quite a unique case; it’s an anomaly,” Pinder said. “These are all very serious accusations.” Midei will have a chance to de- fend himself before an adminis- trative law judge at a formal hear- ing if the case is not settled. If the charges are sustained, the board can invoke a range of penalties, from probation to license revoca- tion.
—Baltimore Sun
Arrest warrant issued for Baltimore police officer
Officer allegedly shot ex-Marine nine times at close range
Baltimore Sun A first-degree murder war-
rant was issued Friday after- noon charging a Baltimore po- lice officer in the killing of a for- mer Marine who was shot nine times at close range outside a club.
Baltimore police intensified
efforts Saturday to locate Gahiji A. Tshamba, who was wanted in connection with the death of Tyrone Brown, 32. Brown, whose service includ- ed four years in Iraq, was an East Baltimore resident who was killed early June 6 in a con- frontation with Tshamba in an alley in Baltimore’s Mount Ver- non neighborhood, according to police and witnesses. Tshamba was not on duty at the time, authorities said. Police had hoped to negotiate
Tshamba’s surrender with his attorney, but apparently no one had been able to contact the 15- year veteran as the search en- tered a second day. Baltimore police spokesman
Anthony Guglielmi said Satur- day afternoon that it was “only a matter of time” before Tsham- ba “pops up on the grid,” per- haps through use of a credit card or telephone.
A regional task force of local,
state and federal law enforce- ment agencies is always in- volved in serving murder war- rants. But with the high-profile case lingering, top command- ers authorized dozens of detec- tives from the Violent Crimes
Impact Section and district de- tective units to get involved. “It’s gone from zero to 60,” said a police official who re- quested anonymity. “This is dif- ferent — this is a cop.” Police planned to distribute fliers and to go door-to-door in neighborhoods including Fed- eral Hill, where Tshamba had indicated earlier in the week that he was staying, and Fells Point. “His attorney claims not to be able to get hold of him,” Gugliel- mi said, but he “has assured us that [Tshamba] is not a danger to himself or anybody else.” The attorney, Adam Sean Co- hen, did not reply to messages left Saturday at his Baltimore office. The police effort came as
Brown’s friends and associates gathered Saturday evening out- side City Hall for a vigil in mem- ory of the East Baltimore resi- dent, whose Marine service in- cluded four years of combat duty in Iraq.
About 100 people attended, clutching candles and praying before releasing about a dozen heart-shaped balloons into the air. Some wore T-shirts bearing Brown’s photo. Several talked before the vigil about his death, and the search for Tshamba. Several Marines from Brown’s unit, the 4th Combat Engine Air Battalion, attended, some from as far away as St. Mary’s County. Marine James Maguire called Brown “outgoing, honest and friendly” and called what hap- pened “an injustice.” “It’s so sad,” said Brown’s fa-
ther, Reginald Dargan, “that he went through all of that [serv- ing in Iraq] and now he had to come here to get killed.”
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