Doctor

That information, and more, is available from the agency that regulates doctors, the state Board of Professional Registration for the Healing Arts.

Because of the data release, Missouri patients are empowered to make more informed decisions about their health care, said Suzanne Henry, policy analyst at Consumers Union.

“By requiring the state to put this stuff up, it gives the patient a much better idea than if you just know this doctor is licensed,” Henry said.

John M. Huff, director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, Financial Institutions and Professional Registration, called the law “a significant step toward better transparency for patients in Missouri.”

The law also requires regulators to post when a doctor has been disciplined by another Missouri agency or by regulators in other states, or has had a judge place limits on his or her ability to practice.

Greater transparency is one benefit of the new law, which was inspired by the 2010 Post-Dispatch series “Who Protects the Patients,” an investigation into the state’s lax and secretive system of doctor discipline.

The healing arts board will have greater authority to suspend the licenses of incompetent and impaired doctors by making it easier to prove that patients are at risk.

Missouri law already allows the board to immediately suspend dangerous doctors, but the Post-Dispatch investigation found it had not done so in at least 25 years.

The new law will allow the board to conduct a hearing if it believes a doctor is a threat to patients because of incompetency, mental illness or substance abuse.

The board could then order competency tests and discipline any doctor who fails to meet minimum standards.

Under the old law, the cases had to first be heard by the state administrative hearing commission, a process that could take several years.

While the new law provides patients with more information about doctors, Missouri still does not provide as much information about physicians as some other states.

For example, it does not give patients information about doctors’ malpractice histories.

DOCTORS’ EDUCATION – Physician license lookup Missouri

The data release allows for the first time an analysis of where Missouri doctors went to medical school.

Perhaps not surprisingly, more Missouri doctors trained at the University of Missouri-Columbia than any other medical school, the data show.

Next to the University of Missouri-Columbia, the state’s medical doctors most often graduated from St. Louis University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Kansas and Washington University medical schools.

The state’s osteopathic physicians most often graduated from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and from A.T. Still University in Kirksville, named after the doctor who founded the alternative branch of medicine there in 1874.

About 12 percent, or 1,548 of 13,078 medical doctors who practice in Missouri received their medical school diplomas in Columbia. The school graduates about 100 doctors each year and estimates that 45 percent will hang their shingles in Missouri.

“One of our missions is to train physicians for the state of Missouri,” said Weldon Webb, Physician license lookup Missouri – associate dean for rural health.

Most of the students admitted to Missouri’s medical school are state residents, which is a top factor in deciding where to set up practice, Webb said.

“If you recruit people from the areas you want to put workforce back into, there’s a better likelihood they’ll go back to that area,” he said.

Washington University is the top-ranked medical school in the state and is widely considered one of the top five nationwide. Among the 120 graduating medical students each year, about one-third are assigned to residency programs in Missouri hospitals, said Kathryn Diemer, assistant dean of career counseling.

Nearly 700 doctors practicing in Missouri graduated from medical school at Washington University.

“I don’t think that is an absolute goal of Washington University, (but) we certainly are happy to keep them here,” Diemer said.

Physician license lookup Missouri – About 74 percent of Missouri’s doctors report earning board certification in a specialty field, according to the Post-Dispatch’s analysis of the newly released data. Nationally, 85 percent of the country’s doctors are board-certified, according to the American Board of Medical Specialties.

Specialty certification indicates the doctor has completed advanced training and testing in a certain field beyond what is required for a medical license.

The most popular specialties in Missouri are internal medicine, family practice and pediatrics.

To search for information Physician license lookup Missouri, go to pr.mo.gov and click on licensee search, or call 573-751-0098. The Post-Dispatch is also making the information accessible online.