THE settlement agreement between former Guam Memorial Hospital physician Dr. George Macris and the current GMH Administration and Board of Trustees is being called “secret” by some who seem to oppose Dr. Macris obtaining his Guam medical license again. If so, it wasn’t a very well-kept secret.

Variety reported in February ("GMH may reinstate Macris," Feb. 20, 2012) that such a settlement had been reached. In fact, we even featured a poll question that week, asking our readers: “Should the medical license of Dr. George Macris be reinstated, allowing him to again practice medicine on Guam?” Of those who responded, 63 percent said "Yes."

Under the agreement, Macris, formerly president of the Guam Medical Society and a physician in private practice at the Harmon Doctors’ Clinic, agrees to drop all charges filed in court against the parties involved – namely GMHA and the Board of Trustees at the time – in exchange for the voiding and vacating of all peer reviews or Medical Executive Committee findings that “led to or served as a basis for suspending [Macris'] hospital privileges at GMH.”

The hope is that the agreement will bring to an amicable close one of the sorriest examples of mistreatment of a medical professional by GMH, its Board of Trustees and, ultimately, the government of Guam ever in its history. Macris, by virtually all accounts and reviews a qualified and competent physician, was run off the island for trumped up, politically motivated reasons having more to do with his tendency to speak out about issues of medical malpractice than his own abilities or performance.

Now some doctors are claiming the “secret” agreement thwarts the GMH peer review system, calling into question that entire process. It does nothing of the sort. It is simply a further review by GMHA and the Board of Trustees of a decision reached through the peer review process.

Somehow, certain doctors at GMH have gotten the idea that the peer review process should be the end of the issue. Doctors review and investigate, and then recommend to the medical licensure board that the subject of the review be stripped of his professional license and ability to earn a living. In fact, an appropriate hospital peer review process must be examined by administrators and the trustees, and possibly even a court of law, to ensure the process was fair and the concluding recommendation just.

Peer review must be reviewed, in other words. The tendency of doctors and other professionals to rally around their own must be balanced against a thorough management review of those decisions, particularly when they affect the license to practice of a fellow professional.

We are confident the legislative committee on health chaired by Sen. Dennis Rodriquez will support the agreement reached between Dr. Macris and GMH, once they weigh all the evidence.