Furor Builds as 105 Accuse Gynecologist : Inquiry: List of women alleging molestation by doctor grows as medical officials blame one another for failing to pursue complaints.

As the list of women allegedly sexually molested by a Tustin gynecologist soared to more than 100 Wednesday, officials in the medical community exchanged barbs, accusing one another of failing to adequately pursue complaints spanning two decades about the doctor.

Two experts who study procedures for disciplining doctors criticized the California Medical Board, saying that the way it handled the complaints against Dr. Ivan C. Namihas--or failed to handle them--is typical of a deeply flawed system that seems to protect doctors at the expense of patients.

In a bid to revoke his medical license, the board in December charged Namihas with sexual misconduct and negligence, based on complaints from five women who said he had fondled them.

After the board’s charges became public, more and more women called with similar complaints. By late Wednesday, the list of alleged victims had grown to between 105 and 110, said Felix Rodriguez, supervisor of the board’s Santa Ana office, who called the sheer number of victims “amazing.”

The case is by far the biggest of its kind that the state has ever seen, he said, assuming that the women’s accounts are verified.

Namihas and his attorney have refused to return repeated calls from a reporter.

Questions remain about why the board took so long to act on the complaints, which first surfaced in 1982 and 1987, and whether its predecessor agency ever pursued an unusual request by the Orange County Medical Assn. in 1975--16 years before Namihas was charged--for an investigation of his conduct.

A board investigator has said that individual complaints against Namihas were not pursued for years because of insufficient evidence or because the agency failed to link them.

Robert C. Fellmeth, director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego Law School and author of a scathing report that led to medical board reforms in 1990, said it is “absolutely typical” of the California Medical Board that initial complaints against Namihas were not pursued.

The board, he said, is “one of the worst” in the country at disciplining doctors, plagued--among other things--by a system that prevents investigators from connecting multiple complaints against a single doctor.

“The system is a medieval guild protecting doctors,” Fellmeth said. “It’s not even close to being a system that protects the public.”

Even reforms passed by the Legislature in 1990 have not improved the rate at which the board removes “dangerous doctors” from practicing, he said.

Fellmeth accused the board of waiving off too many complaints of sexual misconduct, such as those against Namihas, by saying it cannot win a he said/she said case, in which the principal evidence against a doctor is a woman’s testimony.

The board simply does not do enough to substantiate women’s allegations, he said.

Ingrid VanTuinen, a researcher who examines state medical boards for the Public Citizen Health Research Group in Washington, said California’s board has “historically been one of the worst” in disciplining doctors.

In surveys in 1988, 1989 and 1990, California ranked 44th, 34th and 38th among the 50 states in the number of license revocations, suspensions or probations it imposed on doctors, VanTuinen said.

Compared to the toughest state, Missouri, which disciplined doctors at the rate of 9.3 per 1,000 in 1990, California took such steps against just 1.74 of every 1,000 doctors the same year.

Kenneth Wagstaff, executive director of the board, said it is “inconceivable” to him that the Department of Consumer Affairs did not start a full-fledged investigation of the Namihas case in 1975, given the relative rarity of a letter from a local medical association requesting an inquiry.

“We’ve been trying to find out what happened,” Wagstaff said. “But even in 1975, I would have thought that a letter like that from a local medical association would have been given top priority.”

Marika Bonner, executive director of the medical association, said Wednesday that it “appears” that the doctor who headed its ethics committee in 1975 wrote to the Department of Consumer Affairs (then the office that examined reports of medical misconduct), asking that Namihas be investigated.

The department reportedly told the medical association that an investigation would be started, but it is not known whether such an inquiry ever took place.

Officials with Consumer Affairs said such an old case file--if it was ever opened--might have been destroyed by now, stored in the state archives or passed on to the medical board.

Wagstaff said the medical board has no record of any such file.

Bonner expressed dismay that the system of investigating doctors is “probably not” working as well as it should. But she said the board is understaffed and underfunded and is “making valid attempts” to investigate serious allegations against doctors.

Board investigator Kathleen Schmidt, who is handling the Namihas case, fired back her own salvo, implying that the medical association could have pressed harder for a Namihas inquiry.

“They did the very minimum they had to do, and then they washed their hands of it,” Schmidt said. “Where was all the follow-up if it was so serious?”