POULSBO — The state Department of Health has placed Poulsbo physician Susan J. Shlifer on probation for at least five years, following
an investigation into complaints from patients who saw her between 1998 and 2010.
The board that oversees health care licensing for the state found Shlifer provided “a general pattern of substandard care,” and used risky alternative treatments on patients, the DOH announced Friday.
Under an agreement Shlifer reached in February with the Department of Health’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission, she can continue in her family practice at Sound Health and Wellness Center, Inc., but with restrictions and oversight.
The commission charged Shlifer diagnosed patients as having chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia with insufficient physical examination or tests. She then sometimes prescribed “cookie-cutter treatment methods” that were unproven and not effective. Those included the Marshall Protocol, a therapy for treating chronic inflammatory disease developed by Trevor Marshall of Thousand Oaks, Calif., a non-physician with a Ph.D in biomedical engineering....
