NYS' doctor discipline board chairman stepped down to avoid being 'distraction'

The longtime chairman of the state's medical disciplinary board vacated his position in the wake of a Newsday investigation into doctor misconduct, which found that he simultaneously led the board and lobbied for the state's premier physician-advocacy organization.

Dr. Thomas T. Lee retired as chairman of the state’s Board for Professional Medical Conduct in August, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health. Lee confirmed the departure in an interview Thursday, while touting his dedication to transparency, patient care and removing "bad apples" from the system.

"If I’m a distraction," Lee said, "it’s time for me to retire."

Titled "Broken Practice" and published in May, Newsday's investigation found 46 doctors on Long Island who held New York medical licenses without restrictions or penalties for months or years despite criminal convictions, felony arrests, civil judgments or other states’ disciplinary actions. The doctors  included those with legal settlements  and fines or who faced sexual abuse allegations.

The investigation also found Lee held two positions at once: the unpaid chair of the disciplinary board and a top lobbyist for the physician-advocacy organization. Outside experts viewed his ability to lead a board focused on physician discipline while lobbying against legislation on stricter rules of discipline as a conflict of interest.

Lee insisted it was not.

A licensed neurosurgeon, Lee remains the executive vice president of the Westbury-based Medical Society of the State of New York, a position he has held since May 2024. 

He had been the chairman of the state’s disciplinary board since 2019.

"I don’t want to stand in the way of real progress and reasonable progress," Lee said in a phone interview. "If I’m the center of the discussion, then we’re losing something valuable — time, resource-wise and attention span. Focus on something constructive moving forward."

He said he was "offended" by the conflict of interest concerns raised over the dual positions, "because everything is done aboveboard." He said he was proud of the work he had done to educate the board and collaborate with the state Department of Health.

Lee previously told Newsday there was no conflict in his role as the chair of the disciplinary board and his role as a lobbyist on issues including physician misconduct because he does not participate in discipline hearings or decisions, and the Health Department, in an ethics review, concluded no conflict exists.

"It just reeks of conflict of interest," Robert E. Oshel, a former associate director for research and disputes for the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal repository that compiles physician misconduct reports,  previously told Newsday.

Over the course of a year-plus in which Lee held both positions, more than 300 decisions came down from the board, according to a review of its discipline records. 

Lee told the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government that he expected to be paid about $34,000 for lobbying this year, according to a filing he submitted in December.

Bynoe bill

One of Lee's lobbying efforts this year was on legislation State Sen. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) proposed in direct response to Newsday’s investigation. His organization is the only registered lobbyist on the bill.

Bynoe’s bill calls for minimum penalties for doctors, changing the makeup of the board that imposes the penalties and more public posting of disciplinary actions. Bynoe introduced the bill in June, the waning days of the state’s legislative session.  

Under the proposal, doctors who are found to have been convicted of sexual abuse or harassment would have their license revoked. If the doctor was penalized in another state, they would face at least the same consequences in New York.

If the bill became law, doctors who are found to have practiced with negligence multiple times would at a minimum face a two-year license suspension.

Lee found the minimum standards to be a nonstarter, saying it papers over the nuance of individual situations.

Lee said he believes there is less respect for physicians these days and that patients are more likely now to file complaints about long waits, overbooked doctor offices, which he said should be sent elsewhere. The "system itself makes patients frustrated," he said.

Newsday found investigations of misconduct complaints are getting slower as the state imposes serious penalties on doctors only half as often as a decade ago.

Bynoe’s legislation would require the disciplinary board’s makeup to shift away from fellow physicians and more to lay people, including public health professionals.

Lee said he is opposed to this measure because it would sharply depart from the state’s standards of having professionals serve on their respective industry boards.

The office’s budget remained relatively flat over the last two decades, about $30 million, according to state data, while the number of licensed physicians rose by nearly 50%.

Newsday's Arielle Martinez and David Olson contributed to this story