Maryland Board

The Maryland Board of Physicians, which has faced scrutiny in recent months because of its backlog of cases and other problems, is getting a new leader, state health officials said Wednesday. Carole J. Catalfo will begin work as the executive director Feb. 21, according to Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "Carole Catalfo is the right person at the right time for the Board of Physicians," Sharfstein said. "She brings both deep experience in regulatory compliance and professional oversight and a fresh perspective on the challenges facing the board.

The state Board of Physicians has a serious backlog of complaints and a growing timeline for resolving it, according to a newly released legislative audit of the agency charged with protecting the public from bad doctors. It also isn't keeping complete records and its actions lack transparency, sometimes in violation of open meetings laws, the review says. The review comes ahead of the General Assembly session in January, when lawmakers are to consider reauthorizing the medical board, which expires under a "sunset" provision.

The Maryland panel that oversees doctors in the state has charged a man with practicing medicine without a license just weeks after his father's license was suspended for putting autistic children at risk. The Maryland Board of Physicians says David Geier worked with his father, Dr. Mark Geier, at the Rockville and Owings Mills offices of Genetic Consultants of Maryland, where they used a drug therapy that autism experts say is based on junk science. The pair has built a national following among parents who believe autism is linked to the mercury in vaccines, a theory discredited by mainstream medicine.

You have to believe in cosmic justice when you hear about the case of Mark Geier, the doctor whose license to practice was suspended recently after the Maryland Board of Physicians ruled that his bizarre treatment regimen "endangers autistic children and exploits their parents. " If, like me, you don't know much about autism, let me explain where the cosmic justice comes in: One form of the wide-ranging developmental disorder, on the high-functioning, high-verbal end of it, is Asperger's syndrome, which among other things is characterized by a tendency to obsess on a single subject.

Eugene Fressenjat "Gene" Raphel, a World War II veteran and surveyor whose clients for the past 55 years included the federal, state and county jurisdictions as well as numerous commercial firms and private individuals, died Jan. 7 of a stroke at his Monkton home. He was 90. Mr. Raphel, the son of a businessman and a homemaker, was born on Woodbine Farm in Upper Falls. After graduating in 1937 from St. Stephen School in Bradshaw, he began his lifelong career in land surveying with the Roland Park Co. In 1939, he went to work for what was then Whitman, Requardt and Smith, designing and laying out the railroad network for the wartime expansion of Edgewood Arsenal.

Maryland's Board of Public Works approved a complicated land deal Wednesday that clears the way for work on State Center, a massive redevelopment project meant to enhance the western edge of the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore. About a dozen developers partnering on the project appeared before the Board to express support for the deal. Neighborhood representatives said they've been satisfied with their dealings so far with the state and developers, but hope the back-and-forth will continue.

Towson psychiatrist Miguel Frontera's license to practice in Maryland has been permanently revoked after the state board that oversees doctors found that he had inappropriate contact with boys in his care, and Baltimore County police confirm that a criminal investigation is underway. The Maryland Board of Physicians found that the psychiatrist, licensed in the state since 1988, acted improperly in a dozen cases, all involving pre-teen boys, some of whom came forward after the investigation began late last year.

There are 180,000 more women living in Maryland than men, according to the Census Bureau. Women far surpass men in enrollment and graduation from Maryland universities, and they tend to get better grades. Baltimore has its second woman mayor. Women Legislators of Maryland, founded in the 1960s, was the first women's legislative caucus in the country. Nearly one legislator in three in Annapolis is female, the ninth-highest proportion in the country. If Maryland's Barbara Mikulski is re-elected this year, she'll be the longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. Senate.

Rosalyn Shecter, who headed Maryland's film censorship board during the contentious 1960s, died of heart disease Tuesday at the North Oaks retirement community. She was 95. Born Rosalyn Margareten in New York City, she was granddaughter of the woman who founded the Horowitz-Margareten matzo and kosher foods business. She attended Hunter College and later studied sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She met her future husband, Baltimore advertising executive Lois E. Shecter, in Miami Beach.