Illinois once provided the public with detailed histories of the state's doctors — including whether the physician was convicted of a crime, fired by a hospital or forced to make a medical malpractice payment within the previous five years Judging from online traffic, there was great hunger for that information: During the two years that they were posted, the physician profiles generated 130,000 clicks per week. But access to the profiles came to a screeching halt in February, when the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation removed them from its Web site and placed them under lock and key — the latest chapter in a long political battle that has pitted patients' advocates against the state's medical lobby. Now the only information available to the public is whether the regulatory agency has disciplined the doctor.
