Doc heads to NY after FL license revoked

TAMPA - Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacques Renelique wouldn’t answer reporters’ questions in Tampa, Florida in February, but inside a hotel conference room he was grilled by the Florida Medical Board, which concluded he shouldn’t be seeing patients in the state anymore.

“You acted as if you had no interest in taking care of this patient,” said Dr. Jason Rosenberg, after listening to the allegations.

“This is a doctor who abandoned a patient,” agreed Dr. Elisabeth Tucker, who also sits on the Board of Medicine. “I don't want him touching my family member,” Dr. Tucker added.

The allegations involve one of Dr. Renelique’s patients. She came to a clinic in Hialeah, Florida for an abortion, but when the doctor was late, she delivered a baby.

The complaint says a staff member put it in the trash and Dr. Renelique "prepared a false medical record" to cover up the delivery.

Based on that information, the board took the strongest action possible and revoked his license so he would never practice medicine in Florida again. But FOX 13 found out he's now working in New York. He's a doctor at a clinic in the Bronx.

Despite losing his license in Florida, he can still treat patients in that state. A reporter at our FOX station in New York caught up with Dr. Renelique after work.

Reporter: why you are seeing patients when you've had your medical license revoked for malpractice?

Dr. Renelique: Why? Well, my New York medical license was not revoked. That's number one. My Florida medical license was revoked because, and I want the whole world to know, I didn't do anything wrong.

Reporter: You didn't? You falsified records on a horribly botched abortion, right?

Dr. Renelique: That's not true, that's not true. I didn't falsify the records.

Although he wasn't present for the delivery, the Florida medical board held him responsible and upheld allegations that he falsified medical records, delegated inappropriate tasks to unlicensed personnel and committed malpractice.

All that information went into a database called the National Practitioner Data Bank, which alerts other states when a doctor is disciplined. The medical board in New York reviewed Dr. Renelique’s case and decided to let him keep his license there. He's on probation for the next two years.

But patients are not allowed to see the information in the National Practitioner Data Bank. They can’t search for information about Dr. Renelique, or any other physician who has lost a license in another state.

“The damage is that you don't have useful information if you want to determine if you really want to see, or continue to see, a physician as your caregiver,” said Professor Jay Wolfson, who teaches at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health and Medicine. “From a consumer perspective, we could say 'let the consumer be the judge,' and open it up. Make it transparent, a level playing field.”

Professor Wolfson says the Florida Medical Association and the American Medical Association have used their influence to block the release of disciplinary information to the general public.

“If you lose a license in one state, shouldn't you not practice in another state?” the reporter at the FOX station in New York asked Dr. Renelique.

“No, that's not true,” replied Renelique, who will be under the supervision of another doctor while he continues to treat patients in New York.