BALTIMORE — UPDATE 2: The Maryland Board of Physicians released the following statement on the status of an investigation into Dr. Darren Klugman, over anti-Palestinian posts on social media.
"The Board cannot disclose whether or not Dr. Darren Klugman is under investigation. By law, all complaints and subsequent investigations are confidential and not subject to public inspection. Disclosure of these records is prohibited under the Maryland Public Information Act (PIA), Md. Code Ann., General Provisions § 4-301(2)(i). This provision of the PIA prohibits disclosure of a record when disclosure is contrary to a state statute. In this case, section §14-411(b) of the Act expressly prohibits the Board, a disciplinary panel, or any of its investigatory bodies from disclosing any information contained in a record.
If an investigation shall result in charges or any disciplinary action by the Board, a summary of charges filed against the licensee and a description of the disciplinary action is made public on the practitioner’s profile on the Board’s website."
UPDATE: Dr. Darren Klugman has been placed on leave after making anti-Palestinian posts on X. Below is a statement from Kim Hoppe, Vice President of Communications and Chief Communications Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
"We at Johns Hopkins share the concern of many about the deeply disturbing social media posts made by a faculty member in the School of Medicine regarding the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. The faculty member who made these statements has been placed on leave, and thus will have no interaction with students or patients while we conduct a thorough investigation under our policies and procedures.
Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University are committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment for working, learning and patient care for every member of our community and all those we serve. Statements that explicitly threaten or extol violence against groups or individuals on the basis of national origin, race or religion violate our policies and do not represent our values."
ORIGINAL STORY:
A Johns Hopkins doctor is accused of making racist statements about Palestinians on social media. Now, a Muslim advocacy group is calling for his license to be revoked.
"When you are entrusted with the livelihood of patient populations. Then you have a responsibility to demonstrate that you can take care of those individuals in an impartial, objective way," said Zainab Chaudry, the Maryland director for the Council on American-Islamic relations, also known as "CAIR."
She says her office has been flooded with messages from concerned neighbors, patients, and even staff at Johns Hopkins after seeing these tweets posted to Dr. Darren Klugman's account.
Dr. Klugman is the director of pediatric cardiac critical care at Hopkins. The tweets refer to Palestinians as "blood thirsty morally depraved animals."
In response to a user saying "Israeli policy-makers are calling quite literally for a large-scale slaughter," he responds, "G-d willing."
Chaudry says after the tweets started making the rounds on social media, she's heard from families who have decided to move their children to a different hospital.
"One particular family specifically said that they did not feel comfortable. They were not Palestinian-American; they are Muslim-American. They are visibly Muslim; the mother wears a headscarf. And the mother said she felt really vulnerable. She didn't feel that she could trust this institution to take care of her child."
We asked the regional director of the American Jewish Committee, Alan Ronkin, for his take. He says there's no need to engage in that kind of inflammatory rhetoric, no matter which side it comes from. He says it's possible to condemn Hamas, without condemning all Palestinian civilians too.
"To paint everybody with one broad brush, I think is inappropriate and ultimately not helpful. I don't think Hamas is interested in any sort of a solution that doesn't involve the eradication of Jews, but that doesn't mean every Palestinian feels that way."
CAIR has filed a formal complaint against Dr. Klugman with the Maryland Board of Physicians, calling for his license to be revoked.
We reached out to Dr. Klugman directly by phone; he referred us to the Johns Hopkins media team.
CAIR was also forwarded this email by a Hopkins staff member. It's an apology from Dr. Klugman to his colleagues. He calls the tweets "regrettable" and "hurtful," says they in no way reflect his beliefs, and that he's devastated by the impact this has had on his Hopkins family.
