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ProPublica: The State Medical Board Has Evidence This Doctor Was Hurting Patients. It Renewed His License -- Twice.
ProPublica - The State Medical Board Has Evidence This Doctor Was Hurting Patients. It Renewed His License — Twice.
The Montana hospital that fired Dr. Thomas C. Weiner turned over thousands of pages of documents, but members of the board say they were unaware of them.
by J. David McSwane, ProPublica, and Mara Silvers, Montana Free Press
March 21, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, on his porch overlooking Helena, Montana, in 2023. He was accused of overprescribing narcotics, treating people who didn’t have cancer with chemotherapy and providing substandard care. Credit:Louise Johns, special to ProPublica
Since at least April 2021, the Montana medical licensing board has had evidence, including thousands of pages of patient files and medical reviews, that Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, a popular Helena oncologist, had hurt and potentially killed patients, ProPublica and Montana Free Press have learned. Yet in that time, the board renewed his medical license — twice.
Weiner directed the cancer center at St. Peter’s Health for 24 years before he was fired in 2020 and accused of overprescribing narcotics, treating people who didn’t have cancer with chemotherapy and providing substandard care. Weiner, who has denied the allegations, was the subject of a December ProPublica investigation, which revealed a documented trail of patient harm and at least 10 suspicious deaths. Many of the records cited in the story had been in the medical board’s custody for nearly four years, St. Peter’s recently confirmed.
The Board of Medical Examiners renewed Weiner’s medical license in March 2023 and this month, authorizing him to treat patients and prescribe drugs. While lawyers for the state agency that oversees the medical board collected records from the hospital under subpoena, including medical reviews that criticized Weiner’s care, that inquiry languished at the staff level, according to one current and one former board member. It’s unclear why Weiner’s case was not elevated to the governor-appointed board members.
Sam Loveridge, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industry, the board’s umbrella agency, did not answer a list of emailed questions, including whether the records provided by the hospital were reviewed by members of the board.
Kathleen Abke, a lawyer representing St. Peter’s, told ProPublica and Montana Free Press that the hospital initially surrendered to the licensing board 160,000 pages of documents relating to the care of 64 patients; the state received those records in early 2021, just months after Weiner was fired.
/snip
The Montana hospital that fired Dr. Thomas C. Weiner turned over thousands of pages of documents, but members of the board say they were unaware of them.
by J. David McSwane, ProPublica, and Mara Silvers, Montana Free Press
March 21, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT
Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, on his porch overlooking Helena, Montana, in 2023. He was accused of overprescribing narcotics, treating people who didn’t have cancer with chemotherapy and providing substandard care. Credit:Louise Johns, special to ProPublica
Since at least April 2021, the Montana medical licensing board has had evidence, including thousands of pages of patient files and medical reviews, that Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, a popular Helena oncologist, had hurt and potentially killed patients, ProPublica and Montana Free Press have learned. Yet in that time, the board renewed his medical license — twice.
Weiner directed the cancer center at St. Peter’s Health for 24 years before he was fired in 2020 and accused of overprescribing narcotics, treating people who didn’t have cancer with chemotherapy and providing substandard care. Weiner, who has denied the allegations, was the subject of a December ProPublica investigation, which revealed a documented trail of patient harm and at least 10 suspicious deaths. Many of the records cited in the story had been in the medical board’s custody for nearly four years, St. Peter’s recently confirmed.
The Board of Medical Examiners renewed Weiner’s medical license in March 2023 and this month, authorizing him to treat patients and prescribe drugs. While lawyers for the state agency that oversees the medical board collected records from the hospital under subpoena, including medical reviews that criticized Weiner’s care, that inquiry languished at the staff level, according to one current and one former board member. It’s unclear why Weiner’s case was not elevated to the governor-appointed board members.
Sam Loveridge, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Industry, the board’s umbrella agency, did not answer a list of emailed questions, including whether the records provided by the hospital were reviewed by members of the board.
Kathleen Abke, a lawyer representing St. Peter’s, told ProPublica and Montana Free Press that the hospital initially surrendered to the licensing board 160,000 pages of documents relating to the care of 64 patients; the state received those records in early 2021, just months after Weiner was fired.
/snip
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