Report: Oversight lapses at impaired pathologist's hospital

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas veterans hospital missed the errors made by a pathologist who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter while working impaired due to its poor oversight, according to an inspector general's report released Wednesday.

The report by the Department of Veterans' Affairs inspector general criticized the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, where Robert Morris Levy worked, for not having a “culture of accountability" that would have encouraged others to report his mistakes without fear of reprisals.

Under an agreement with federal prosecutors, Levy pleaded guilty last year to one count of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a patient he misdiagnosed. The IG's report said lapses in the Fayetteville facility's quality management processes contributed to thousands of Levy's errors.

“Any one of these breakdowns could cause harmful results," the report said. “Occurring together and over an extended period of time, the consequences were devastating, tragic, and deadly."

Levy pleaded guilty to misdiagnosing a patient with small cell carcinoma who died after being treated for a type of cancer he didn’t have. Levy falsified the patient’s medical record to state that a second pathologist agreed with his diagnosis, according to the agreement.

Levy also pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud for receiving 2-methyl-2-butanol, a chemical that he used to intoxicate himself but that standard drug and alcohol screenings don’t test for.

Levy was fired from the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks in Fayetteville in April 2018. The hospital did not have an immediate comment on the report.

VA officials said in 2019 that outside pathologists reviewed nearly 34,000 cases handled by Levy and found more than 3,000 errors or missed diagnoses...