Bill advances in Senate requiring criminal checks for doctors

The measure was prompted by the case of Dr. William Dando, a former Catonsville family doctor who was charged with sexually assaulting a female patient in Western Maryland.  Those charges were dropped when he surrendered his license.

But the Baltimore Sun reported that the doctor had been convicted of rape in Florida nearly 30 years earlier, unknown to Maryland health officials who granted him a medical license in 1996.

Under current law, doctors applying for a license in Maryland are asked to disclose any arrests, charges or convictions for crimes "of moral turpitude." The state Board of Physicians is supposed to investigate any such disclosures.

Dando was convicted in 1987 of following a Florida woman home and raping her at gunpoint, and served four years of a 10-year sentence. Within two years of his release, he was treating patients as a resident at the University of Maryland Medical Center and was licensed in 1996. 

But the rape conviction never came up during his licensure, or when he faced disciplinary action in 2009 for failing to meet standards of care with several patients.