Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Ira Lewy

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was KEEP an eye on it. -Splash - tk 23:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Ira Lewy[edit]

I tried to help the author of this article, Kingseason, with establishing the notability of the subject. He appears to have written a number of research papers, but I don't think this goes beyond the amount of research needed to fulfill Wikipedia:Notability. When asked of the author's relation to Dr. Lewy, Kingseason told me that he was his research assistant. Even without this information, the article reads like a conflict of interest. It's almost entirely positive information, while a quick google search turns up omitted negative information about Dr. Lewy [1]. I don't have any prejudice against someone scrapping the article and rewriting it in the event that he does actually meet the notability guidelines, but the current article is not satisfactory. Leebo ^T/C 13:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ultra-weak keep to allow time for tidying up and sourcing, but delete unless substantially improved soon; as per nom, at the moment this reads like a job application. If the man's notable for anything, it's for his criminal & disciplinary record more than his work, and this is precisely the material the article currently omits. - iridescenti (talk to me!) 13:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Resume/CV. If the creator wants to work on it, it can be userfied and moved back into article space when ready. --Fang Aili ^talk 18:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 23:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I added references from the New York Times (enough to establish notability, I think) which call into question his clinical work related to breast implants. Now that some negative information is available, I think an appropriate article can be built from the current one and from the references. --Eastmain 00:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I am not totally sure his initial medical research is notable, though some of the journals cited are first-rate. But his later adventures are. DGG 01:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This is a one-sided "bio" which ignores the ignominious last several years of this person's career, with more State Medical Board fines, censures, and reprimands than are listed here (can find by Googling Pennsylvania and New York and his name). It also ignores his last job with an "alternate" cancer treatment center, where again, he had no medical admitting privileges at any hospital. If it isn't deleted, it should include further details of his "later adventures." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marciamaria (talk • contribs) 21:12, 10 April 2007 — Marciamaria (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Yes, it should,. this is an editing question, so please add them if you have sources. DGG 06:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A word of information is in order; since the advent of Googling and, more specifically, the National Practitioners Data Bank in the late 1980's, state medical authorities are able to "pile on" a practitioner, because a disciplinary action in another state is,by definition, a cause for investigation and discipline. In Dr Lewy's case, the retaliatory removal from the staff of Methodist Hospital (a defendant in many breast implant cases and the home of the invention of the device itself) automatically was a breach of the state board rules, then the state's action pari passu led to mirroring actions elsewhere. To see the vindictive and abusive nature of this process, consider that Dr Lewy never even practiced medicine in New York State, or had an active license, yet New York demanded thousands of dollars to drop its action. Other than Oklahoma, his license remains in good standing in all other states. Further, his primary Baylor teaching hospital never took an action against his privileges even after the Methodist action . Working for the Burzynski Clinic was indeed a great opportunity to help the doctor with his great burden. No hospital privileges were required.
Regarding the deletion and editing, it seems prejudicial. Major scientific accomplishments, like the Circulation article,were removed. If the complete references were restored, Dr Lewy feels they speak for themselves, and would accept a mention of the Texas State Board action, though not its "plea bargained" conclusions or their mirroring in other states. Indeed, Dr Lewy himself cited the critical article about him in the New York Times Ironically, the same piling on that he experienced 10 years ago to punish him for his work on breast implants via the state boards and now played itself out again within Wiki. Kingseason.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingseason (talk • contribs) — Kingseason (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Dr. Lewy's problems with the Texas Board stemmed from three issues: his loss of privileges, his prematurely issuing a press release which was confusing and incorrectly characterized his participation status regarding two research studies, and his charging referring agencies a surcharge for evaluating patients and evenings and weekends. The latter two were well after his loss of hospital privileges (1993) and the Texas report was in 1997; his Texas "problems" were therefore not just "piggy-backing" on the 1993 event.
  Falsifying his application to practice medicine in Oklahoma and pleading guilty to a misdemeanor as a plea bargain when faced with the facts are also hardly "piggy-backing" on earlier problems.
  As far as the Baylor Hospital and the purported non-loss of medical privileges, the fact remains that for the last several years of his professional life, Lewy did not have hospital admitting privileges; anyone in the medical professions knows what that means. He was not able to admit to a hospital his very ill and dying patients at the Burzynski Clinic.
  Why did the original submission not mention the Burzynski Clinic, if Lewy is now so proud of his work there, or Lewy's short-lived job in Oklahoma. When and where was Kingseason his "research assistant"?
  Kingseason writes that Lewy would "accept" the mention of the Texas State Board's action; Lewy has no choice to "accept" or "not accept" the Wikipedia article. His dissatisfaction with the Wikipedia entry stems from the fact that all of Marciamaria 14:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)the grave problems he had in the last more than ten years of his professional life were omitted in the original entry. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marciamaria (talk • contribs) 14:18, April 12, 2007 (UTC) — Marciamaria (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  - Marciamaria is completely ignorant of the facts; Dr Lewy states that the hospital deletion did set in course a hearing at the state board level that eventually led to an agreed order in 1997. Regarding the press release, as stated before it was compromise; there is evidence that he was in fact participating in the research project mentioned. Finally, the overcharges were merely for night and weekend hours used at patient requests. All these "events" did occur in 1993-1994. TGhe Burzynski clinic had a system in which one physician was responsible for hospitalized patients.
    Clearly this entry is turning ugly and Marciamaria is quite vindictive.Further, much of the published work had been deleted. This is unacceptable to Dr Lewy,and he requests deletion. Thank you. Kingseason —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kingseason (talk • contribs) 17:55, April 12, 2007 (UTC)
Keep. To me his contributions, both positive and negative, add up to an interesting story that is clearly notable. The later legal issues are a matter of public record and can't be denied, but the small fines indicate to me a lack of serious malfeasance. I don't think the subject of an article should be able to dictate its removal but in connection with WP:BLP we should be very careful that all negative statements in the article are reliably sourced; I have already twice removed statements added by Marciamaria (seemingly a single-purpose attack account) that I did not feel were sufficiently well documented. And to Marciamaria and Kingseason: please sign your statements and format consistently, so that the rest of us can follow the conversation more easily. —David Eppstein 00:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Marciamaria and Kingseason are both single-purpose accounts, though Kingseason has been around longer. Neither have contributed to other articles in the encyclopedia. Leebo ^T/C 01:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

David, I did try to sign my last edit, but it appeared somehow in the middle of the comment (I'm sure it's my fault, but it was signed, although in the wrong place.) I have not removed anything from Lewy's bibliography; others must have done that. As for Kingseason's insistence that the events referred to in the Texas Board's reprimand Marciamaria 01:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC) all took place in 1993 and 1994, the report itself refers to the last event as taking place in 1995. Anyone who reads the entire correspondence, edits, notes to and from Leebo, Kingseason, and others., can come to only one conclusion about who Kingseason really is (he refers to himself as Lewy's research assistant). I am sorry if anyone thinks I am guilty of a single-purpose attack account: the fact remains the everything I have said is backed up by published reports, that the original biography was nothing more than a kind of puff-piece, a form of advertising, which Wikipedia explicitly prohibits, a self-serving entry that left out material information, including Lewy's last place of employment as well as his problems with State Medical Boards. Yes, I have never before written anything about any Wikipedia entry, but I never before saw anything that was so egregiously incomplete. 01:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)Marciamaria[reply]

keep ignomy is notability, the article should be made to discuss the whole career.--Buridan 09:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.