My son called from the emergency room before dawn and said, “Dad, the doctor is refusing to treat me. He says I’m faking it for drugs.” When I got there, the doctor’s s…

“Dr. Mills,” she said, “how do you feel about the board’s decision?”

I looked at the lens because sometimes you are no longer speaking to a reporter. You are speaking to the families who have not yet been hurt.

“I think justice was served in this case,” I said. “But I also think it should not have taken my son nearly dying to force the system to act. Dr. Vance had a documented pattern of negligent care. The hospital knew there were complaints. The board had seen concerns before. But nothing meaningful happened until one case became too visible to ignore. The question we should all be asking is how many patients were harmed because institutions chose to protect a doctor instead of protecting the public.”