COLUMBIA -- The state Senate gave key approval to a bill Thursday aimed at giving South Carolinians more information about misconduct allegations against doctors.

The bill would require the state Board of Medical Examiners to release information on misconduct complaints soon after the board conducts a preliminary investigation to determine whether there is substance to a complaint against a doctor.

Details about the allegations would become public 10 days after the doctor responds to the complaint, and from that point on "all subsequent records and proceedings relating to the misconduct allegations must be open to the public," the bill states.

"That's a good step for openness and accountability in South Carolina," said Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. Press Association, an organization that represents most of the state's daily newspapers. Passage of the bill was a priority for the association this year.

The bill will help the "public to protect themselves from unprofessional doctors," Rogers said.

Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Manning, echoed similar sentiments: "Five percent of the doctors do 95 percent of the bad work, and I think that the public needs to know who they are."

The bill now awaits routine third-reading in the Senate before going back to the House of Representatives, where members can agree to minor changes made by the Senate or send the measure to a conference committee to work out differences.

Currently, little the medical board does when handling a misconduct case is public. Interest in more disclosure increased during the past year as questions were raised about the state medical board's handling of complaints involving Hilton Head Island's Dr. James D. Johnston and Dr. James M. Shortt of West Columbia.

Johnston, a popular cardiologist, came under the scrutiny of the medical board in 2001 after a series of alcohol-related traffic tickets and again in 2004 when his privileges at Hilton Head Regional Medical Center were suspended. That action was taken after a nurse said he appeared to be intoxicated when he arrived in the emergency room to treat an elderly heart-attack patient.

Johnston later was required to undergo in-patient alcohol rehabilitation at a facility in Atlanta.

As Johnston's troubles unfolded, however, few details were available because the medical board -- and later the state's Administrative Law Court -- sealed most documents and held hearings in secret. Indeed, throughout most of the disciplinary process, the medical board's Web site declared that Johnston's license was in good standing and that no disciplinary action had been taken against him.

The medical board and the administrative court handled Dr. Shortt's case in much the same way. Shortt was accused of injecting some of his patients with hydrogen peroxide. One patient who had undergone the treatment died.

"Dr. Shortt's travails obviously elevated the discussions (in the legislature) somewhat," said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, a supporter of the bill.

Senate Medical Affair Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Gaffney, said the measure "gives a People's Court-type perspective" to medical disciplinary cases.

"The more sunshine, the better," Peeler said.

State Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, said the bill passed Thursday in the Senate by a voice vote, but had it been a roll call, he would have voted for it.

"It's a good bill," Richardson said. "The whole concept -- doctors, lawyers, any professional like that that the public relies on -- all should be open to the public. If you haven't done anything wrong, you shouldn't have anything to be afraid of. That's what I hear from most of the physicians I know."

One exception in the bill would maintain confidentiality in discipline cases if a doctor's misconduct resulted from "physical or mental causes." The term isn't defined in the bill, leaving open the possibility that some misconduct -- alcohol or drug abuse or sexual abuse of a patient, for example -- could be attributed to a mental problems and therefore be handled confidentially.

Senate Judiciary chairman Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the state has a responsibility to disclose as much information as possible about professions it regulates.

"You know, you can't have it both ways," McConnell said. "You can't on one side use the state licensing procedures and get the benefits of that and not expect what comes with it -- and that is a level of public accountability."

Doctors should be treated the same way as lawyers and other professionals, Hutto said.

"Whatever the grievance process is for the individual profession, we expect that the ... point at which the public has a right to know will remain uniform throughout all professions," Hutto said.

McConnell said he takes a dim view of a recent trend of administrative law judges intervening in doctor discipline cases and ordering that hearings be closed and records sealed.

Earlier this year, The Island Packet argued in a case before the state Supreme Court that South Carolina's chief Administrative Law Court judge, Marvin Kittrell, erred when he ordered records in the Johnston case sealed and hearings closed. The Packet argued that the newspaper and patients of doctors suspected of misconduct had a right to information on such cases.

The court is expected to rule on the case soon.