The first time Rebecca Haw Allensworth attended a licensing board meeting, she could hardly believe what she was seeing: A physician with a long malpractice history, including sexual misconduct and giving drugs to patients off the books, was trying to get his medical license reinstated. And to Rebecca's disbelief, the Tennessee Medical Examiners Board did just that. And so the book she thought was writing changed instantly. 

Now, several years and many, many public meetings later, that book has been published. The Licensing Racket takes a deep look at the ways licensing boards operate. These are bodies made up of professionals essentially policing themselves — often with little understanding of the actual statutes they're upholding and little training about how and why they render their judgments. And Rebecca asks whether public safety is really being served by this type of regulation.

Guest: Rebecca Haw Allensworth

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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