'Disappearing docs' list is inaccurate, a few phone calls show

Out of 20 doctors on the roll, half are still in business in the state.

By John M.R. Bull
Of The Morning Call

April 18, 2004

HARRISBURG | Pennsylvania doctors routinely point to a ''disappearing doctors list'' as proof 1,700 physicians have left the state over the past three years.

But it's not accurate.

The Morning Call attempted to contact 20 doctors on the list over the course of three hours one recent afternoon, and found half of them still in business in Pennsylvania .

For example, neurosurgeons George Chovanes and Robert Morrow remain in Allentown , on North Fifth Street .

Family doctor Cromwell Estrada continues to operate his practice on West Hamilton Street in Allentown .

Orthopedic surgeon Steven J. Lowe is on the disappearing doctors list. Actually, he can be found in the Philadelphia suburb of Yardley, and is open for business.

Gary Szydlowski, a cardiovascular surgeon, was in Pittsburgh . He now has an office in the Lehigh Valley . He's on the list as a doc who disappeared.

Richard P. Baker III, an ob-gyn, supposedly left the state. In fact, he closed his Quakertown offices.

He continues to work out of an office near Easton , on William Penn Highway , according to the secretary in that office.

According to the disappearing doctors list, cardiologist Bruce Berger gave up his Philadelphia practice and left the state last year. Actually, he's at Abington Hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs, where he has been on staff since April 1999, according to the hospital.

None of those doctors could be reached for comment at their offices. They were either in surgery, seeing patients or at another office they maintain, according to their secretaries.

Still, the Pennsylvania Medical Society constantly promotes that list as proof doctors are leaving the state. A spokesman maintained that the list of disappearing doctors is ''substantially accurate.''

''I know doctors have left. I've seen it in my own family,'' said spokesman Chuck Moran. ''Even if a few of them are inaccurate or have changed, the list shows there is something there.''

State statistics, however, show that doctors have not been fleeing the state in large numbers, as doctors have claimed.

Donna Baver Rovito, an activist for the Medical Society and wife of a Lehigh Valley Hospital surgeon, compiled the list, often relying on second- and third-hand sources.

Gov. Ed Rendell has highlighted the case of the Philadelphia neurosurgeon who repaired his wife's herniated disc.

Rendell said the surgeon, Steven Dante, was driven from the state because of high malpractice insurance rates and headed ''west.''

Dante said he did go to Indiana in 2002, but returned to Philadelphia last year, to become a full-time faculty member at Jefferson Medical College .

Dante too is on the list of disappearing docs, which claims he moved not to Indiana but to Ohio .