(HealthNewsDigest.com) - By many measures Dr. Constantine Toumbis' career is a success. He's been chief of staff at Citrus Memorial Hospital and sits on its board of trustees. He is among Florida's busiest spinal surgeons, bringing in $1.2 million from Medicare in 2012 alone.

But when ProPublica took a closer look at Toumbis, reporters Marshall Allen and Olga Pierce found a hidden past, one that could have precluded his being a surgeon in the first place: He was convicted of a felony for stabbing a classmate in 1989.

Key takeaways:

• Doctors applying for state medical licenses and jobs are typically asked to disclose any criminal convictions. However, documents show that Toumbis omitted or misrepresented his felony record when he applied for a hospital internship and in filings submitted to Florida medical regulators -- raising crucial questions about systems for licensing and vetting doctors. 
  
• According to a police report, Toumbis said, "I stabbed him. He came at me with lethal force. I have a right to protect myself." In subsequent accounts, however, Toumbis would not admit to stabbing classmate Frank Slazyk. In one case, he even portrayed himself as a victim -- of an attacker who thrust his neck onto Toumbis' dagger.
• When ProPublica began comparing the performance of nearly 17,000 surgeons who do elective operations under Medicare, Toumbis stood out for another reason: His complication rates for routine spinal procedures were among the highest in the nation.

More in the full story here: http://www.propublica.org/article/for-a-surgeon-with-a-history-of-complications-a-felony-past.
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