Carbondale hospital has brain surgeon again

CARBONDALE, Ill. - Memorial Hospital in Carbondale has recruited a new brain surgeon nearly a year after the resignations of the hospital's last two neurosurgeons, who claimed they were driven out of Illinois because of a hostile medical malpractice environment.

The hospital has reached an agreement with Dr. Allan Gocio, who is currently practicing in St. Louis, which means Carbondale will again have a neurosurgery practice in April when the Neurological Surgeons of Southern Illinois opens, hospital administrator George Maroney said.

Maroney said he has been trying to recruit brain surgeons to southern Illinois but that high medical malpractice premiums discourage experienced doctors from relocating to this state.

When Dr. Sumeer Lal and Dr. B. Theo Mellion quit, it devastated the hospital's neurosurgery department, and finding a replacement was a serious challenge, Maroney said.

"I didn't think we'd be able to do it this rapidly," he said.

When Mellion left, he said he closed his Carbondale office in part because of his insurance costs, which would have trebled to $300,000 in 2004, more than three times the national average.

Mellion and his partner's resignations left much of Illinois south of Springfield without a hospital that performs brain surgery.

Although the hospital now has Gocio, the facility's difficulties in wooing neurosurgeons to the area are far from over, said Maroney, who called on lawmakers to address malpractice issues.

"Our legislators, our governor, our president - they all need to do their jobs," he said Thursday. "I don't want anyone to get the impression the crisis is over. This is the first building block."