Many doctors treating LA prisoners have disciplinary records themselves

Of the 15 doctors working full-time at Louisiana state prisons, nearly two-thirds have been disciplined by the state medical board for issues ranging from pedophilia to substance abuse to dealing methamphetamines. Louisiana state prisons appear to be dumping grounds for doctors who are unable to find employment elsewhere because of their checkered pasts, raising troubling moral questions as well as the specter of an accident waiting to happen. About 60 percent of the state's prison doctors have disciplinary records, compared with 2 percent of the state's 16,000 or so licensed medical doctors, according to data from the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners.