Mark Midei

Mark G. Midei (born June 24, 1957), an American physician, was previously employed as the director of the catheterization laboratory at St. Joseph Medical Center of Towson, Maryland. Though talented, he was barred from practicing at St. Joseph in 2009 and lost his license to practice in Maryland in 2011 after the state board determined Midei engaged in unnecessary cardiac stent procedures (overutilization), among other findings. Midei says he did not provide any unnecessary treatments and that he was a scapegoat for the hospital and has sued them. The New York Times said his "fall was as rapid as it was dramatic" — a former colleague had vowed to bring him down.
Early career
Midei studied at Johns Hopkins University and as a cardiologist was, "by several accounts ... better than almost anyone at the delicate business of threading tiny stent screens into heart vessels". Midei also worked as an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Midei received his M.D. in 1981 and from 1981 to 1987 performed a residency and two fellowships at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Midei is board certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and interventional cardiology.
When practicing in Maryland, Midei "had been one of the most sought-after clinicians in his region ... He was a co-founder of MidAtlantic, a practice with dozens of cardiologists that controlled much of the cardiac business in Baltimore's private hospitals. Dr. Midei was one of the practice's stars. When MidAtlantic negotiated a $25 million merger with Union Hospital in 2007, the deal was contingent" on him working for Union-MidAtlantic. In one August 2008 day, Midei inserted 30 Abbott Laboratories cardiac stents. The hospital paid back several million in Medicare fees paid under Midei to settle government claims. St. Joseph billed public and private insurers $6.6 million for the 585 procedures (~$11,000 on average) with Medicare paying slightly more than half of that total. Midei sued the hospital for $60 million and that he was "made a scapegoat by hospital administrators who were trying to deflect attention" from kickbacks received by St. Josephs On the part of the hospital, Midei alleges "fraud, invasion of privacy, and emotional distress". Midei, as of January 2011, faced over 80 lawsuits from previous patients. After leaving St. Josephs, Midei was employed by Abbot and sent to Japan as a consultant until controversy over the unnecessary stenting and critical news coverage, such as that in The Baltimore Sun, made such work impossible. The Senate Finance Committee reported he also worked at the Prince Salman Heart Center in Riyadh after leaving St. Josephs. At St. Josephs, the number of patients receiving stents dropped to 116 in 2009 from 350 the previous year. During the scrutiny Midei and St. Josephs received in 2009, the hospital underwent a management "shake-up".
In 2011, the Maryland State Board of Physicians revoked his license to practice medicine, finding Midei "guilty of unprofessional conduct, willfully making a false report, gross overutilization of health care services, violating the standard of quality care, and failure to keep adequate medical records". The board also said Midei, "was employed under circumstances in which any employee would feel at least some pressure to produce a high volume of stents".
Selected publications
;Medical literature
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;Book chapter
*Jeffery Brinker, Mark Midei (2002). [http://books.google.com/books?id-mZnL0rWWWoC&pgPA216&dq=%22Mark+Midei%22&hlen&ei969ITtaBDsn50gHovYHoBw&saX&oibook_result&ctresult&resnum1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#vonepage&q%22Mark%20Midei%22&f=false Cardiac pacing and ICDs] Wiley-Blackwell p. 216-76.

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