Kiyoshi Fukuda, a dentist from Santa Rosa, California, is a registered sex offender. He admitted to having sex with a child under 16 and even though he disclosed his status to the state licensing board his record remained "clean" on the bureau's website. Even Fukuda was surprised by that one.

Over a third of California's 937,100 licensed healthcare workers have not been fingerprinted - a crucial step in vetting workers by checking criminal databases and intended to prevent rapists, drug addicts and others with rap sheets from becoming licensed to provide health care services.

Incredibly, over three-quarters of psychiatric technicians; nearly half of family therapists, social workers and dentists; and 12 percent of physicians were not fingerprinted by their relevant licensing boards.

Among them was Michael Marcus, a dentist from San Jose who was arrested in July 2005 after allegedly fondling a 17-year-old patient. He was charged with three misdemeanor charges of sexual battery, on top of three others he had received in 1996. So far, he's only gotten a slap on the wrist - five years of probation - and says he has the right to continue practicing until he is found guilty by a court of law.

Sure, Michael.

The cases, which are numerous, also included some off-the-job criminality that eventually found its way into the examination room. Escondidio nurse Mary Eileen Cahill-Therrien was convicted of vandalism, driving under the influence, and disturbing the peace in 2000 and 2001.

Despite showing up at a home-care assignment drunk (and being asked to leave after stupidly leaving a patient's catheter in) she managed to find another job, where she was fired only weeks later for - surprise! - being drunk.

BUT WAIT. Undeterred by her spat of bad luck with, you know, the whole drunk at work thing, Cahill somehow got yet another job which she ultimately lost due to - wait for it - her unholy love of drinking. While Cahill sounds like a girl worth going out on the town with (or an aunt worth calling for a beer-run on prom night), I'm not so sure I'd want her taking charge of my catheter experience -just a thought.

These cases are among some of the most brazen abuses that can occur in a doctor-patient relationship. If the licensing board won't protect us from being anesthetized under the hands of child molesters, rapists, violent criminals and drug addicts, do they really serve any function at all?