Certainly there times when a doctor is clearly remiss and some doctors that should not be practicing at all but I am rather stunned that you, as a doctor, propose a doctor who does harm be suspended for a period without little detail.

When I was growing up in Klamath Falls, Oregon, the town had two doctors who were very close friends.  When one of the doctors was out of town one of his sons choked on something the son ate and the friend operated.  The boy died.

Astonishing to me, the doctor whose son had died did an autopsy on his own son according to my sister, a nurse.  That doctor concluded his friend was negligent and the two became bitter enemies afterwards.  Presumably the opinion of negligence was not widely shared.

Even this layperson thinks it not so easy to assign blame and particularly in various very specialized surgery such as neurosurgery or whipples.

More openness and less protection for the baddies might do much to resolve much of the problem.

If you have an accident, or "use" your insurance to replace a vandalized windshield, or even live in a "bad" neighborhood where the police ticket you for going through a stoplight that they control with a remote selector device, your car insurance goes straight up.

Few people know that a rookie surgeon can perform 18 botched heart surgeries that kill 18 patients in a row, and his or her insurance will not go up one cent! And if a hospital looks the other way, this rookie surgeon can then operate on a 19th "patient!"

See, like God, insurance companies act in strange ways. Except, they make a lot more money.

Interesting post.  I definately believe that medical licensing boards are way too lenient but this seems a little draconian.  Settled lawsuits would result in a license revokation??  People settle lawsuits all the time to avoid court/lawyer costs and the roll of the dice of a trial especially if insurance will pay it off.  It does not always mean guilt or wrong doing.  

A better solution would be:

1 - Open the national practitioner database to the public so people can see how many times a doctor has been sued and the outcome of those cases.

2 - Remove the cronyism of licensing boards and give them real teeth to investigate cases of medical wrong doing.  

3 - Establish tough rules for revokation of a license - i.e. negligent death or inury of a patient as determined by a thorough investigation.  

I definately agree with the thrust of your argument that too many bad doctors continue to practice but I think you solution goes a little too far.