“If you puke again, you’ll have to eat it.”

Faye Clark, a nurse aide at Heritage Hill in Big Stone Gap, had her license revoked in August after the board found her guilty of abusing and neglecting nursing home patients.

The consent order says that between Jan. ‘02 and July ‘06 Clark did the following:

a.) was very “negative and snappy” to a resident and told her “not to start her damn shit.”

b.) was “hateful” and “rough” when moving a resident to a wheelchair.

c.) when asked to take a resident to the bathroom she said, “We’ll get there when we get there; we are not stopping.”

d.) told a resident who had just vomited, “If you puke again, you’ll have to eat it.”

At an informal conference with the board, Clark denied any instances of abuse. She was fired from Heritage Hill in July ‘06.

Nurses take drugs, too

During her employment at Carrington Place of Tappahannock nurse Mollie Murphy took drugs from patient supplies for her own use.

Murphy, in just about two months, took narcotic pain medications such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. Murphy was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of possession of controlled substances in Essex County.

In 2004, Murphy took drugs from Ruxton Health of Williamsburg by “fabricating physician orders to discontinue the medications, documenting destruction of the falsely discontinued drugs, and then retaining the drugs herself.”

The board suspended her license in September. Murphy can apply for reinstatement, but the order does not say for how long she must be suspended first.

Pharmacy tech helps herself to 11,612 pills in three months

Jessica Brashear, a licensed pharmacy technician at a Walgreens in Portsmouth, Va., admitted in a consent order that she diverted medication and lost her job over it. The state revoked her license Sept. 11.

Diverting drugs means taking them for yourself or somebody else. We could fill this blog with stories about drug diversion, because a small but steady number of medical workers help themselves to the drugs they are entrusted to give to patients. Many of them get caught and fired, according to filings you can look up here. Here’s another example in case you’d like more proof that employee drug diversion is a big challenge in health care. And another. And another. And another.

Here’s what Brashear took from Dec. 17, 2006, to March 27, 2007:

-11,342 units of Vicodin

-200 units of Lortab

-60 units of Viagra

-10 units of an antibiotic

Inspectors find bloody cloth at funeral home, yank license

Danville’s Cunningham & Hughes Funeral Home agreed to a six-month license suspension to clean up its act. Put on probation in 2004 for lax compliance with consumer protection laws, record-keeping mandates and established operating procedures in the industry, the business repeatedly failed unannounced inspections in 2005, 2006 and 2007 that it had been told to anticipate.

Inspectors found inaccuracies in its price list, cracked and peeling floor tile and walls, stains in the morgue around the sink and on the floor, dirty embalming instruments and other evidence that contributed to “an appearance of general disorganization,” according to a consent order. “A bloody cloth was found on the floor.”

Other problems included that the funeral home was five weeks late paying a $1,000 fine in 2005 and was late in submitting copies of its waste removal contract and copies of its submissions of death data to the Virginia Department of Health’s division of vital records, raising further questions.

Finally, the state Department of Health Professions confronted manager Cynthia Coleman Hughes with the home’s shaky track record in a written notice in August.. Hughes agreed the allegations were true and went along with the state taking away the home’s funeral establishment license Sept. 6.

Hughes can ask for it back in six months.

State vs. State

Tammy Sue Peacock had her respiratory care license put on a one year probation in West Virginia after she stole prescription blanks and tried to obtain Percocet in 2005. She tried to get the medicine by writing fraudulent prescriptions for a pharmacy in neighboring Virginia.

Just six days ago, the Virginia Board of Medicine voted to grant Peacock a license to practice respiratory medicine in Virginia. It is unclear where in Virginia she will practice.

A search for Tammy Peacock in the West Virginia Board of Medicine database shoots out a blank. This means that Peacock is no longer licensed in that state, either voluntarily or because it was mandated.

Tell me what you think

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Best,

Your VaDocWatch admin

Drugs and wrong teeth

Richard Hull, a dentist in Lexington, has been in trouble numerous times with the board.

According to a consent order filed this month, in ‘05 and ‘06 Hull provided a prescription for a patient not related to dental to work. The medicine, Vicoprofen, was intended to help ease the pain of osteoarthritis and was based on the apparent prescription of an out-of-state practitioner.

In return for the Vicoprofen, which was purchased four times from Sullivan Schein Dental for $681.44 each time, the patient performed some sort of labor for the doctor.

Earlier in his practice (Sept. ‘05), Hull pulled the wrong teeth from a female patient. Hull was supposed to pull the girl’s wisdom teeth but instead pulled four 12-year-old molars. Ouch. The order said that the patient would require more dental work in the future as a result.

Hull is on an indefinite suspension that can be stayed no sooner than May 15 2008 — meaning license restrictions can be lifted in a year, provided he follows through with the boards requests. Hull is prohibited from prescribing Schedule II-V drugs, has to pay $33,000 in fines and take some continuing education classes.

Bomb!

James Borror, a nurse in Stephens City, got in trouble with the board for crying wolf a few too many times.

Borror made atleast two telephone calls to Heritage Hall facilities advising staff that there was a bomb in the building. Borror did so to test his employees’ knowledge of what to do in case there really was a bomb threat. He was suspended from work for three days.

Then in March ‘05, Borror was fired for other unprofessional conduct (not specified in the consent order.)

Borror told the board he did not understand the seriousness of his actions.

Borror was reprimanded by the board more than two years later this past August. He has to take two online classes in critical thinking skills and ethics.

If you’re interested in what to do in case of workplace threats, check this out.

Fend for yourself

Sandy Potter, a nurse aid at Franklin Healthcare Center in Rocky Mount, clocked out at 4 a.m. during his night shift one day in June last year.

Potter left a resident, who was in his total care, naked and covered in feces in an unmade bed.

Potter was reprimanded and a finding of neglect was entered against him.

Regina Lane, a nurse aide Wytheville, left for lunch during her 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 11:42 a.m. and never returned. By doing so, Lane abandoned the ten residents that were under her care.

Lane was fired from the Edgemont Center and in early August was reprimanded by the board.

Campaign fraud – doctor returns to practice

In 2005 James Polk, a psychologist, was convicted of felony election fraud in Virginia Beach. An online encyclopedia entry, which admits its liberal slant, documents an article stating that Polk committed ten counts of election fraud as the state campaigner for Ralph Nader. As a result Polk’s license was suspended.

Polk was a psychologist with the 1st Medical Group at Langley Air Force Hospital in the early 90s. During that time his privileges were restricted to require one year of supervision, the order said, for not properly documenting patient records.

In 1996 Polk ran for school board and his irregularities in the Air Force came under question. According to an article in the Virginian-Pilot:

“They said that they couldn’t understand my notes well enough for somebody else to come in and pick up where I left off,” Polk said when questioned about the investigation.

But he admitted in subsequent interviews that the investigation involved more than inadequate notes.

Polk said the issue involved, in part, the number of patients attending weight-loss sessions that he conducted at Langley.”

Other discrepancies became evident in Polks’ teaching background, according to the news article, when school officials couldn’t back up Polk’s record:

“A curriculum vitae, which Polk gave to a reporter who met with him in February, stated that he holds adjunct professorships at the College of William and Mary and California’s Fielding Institute.

A spokesperson in William and Mary’s psychology department said Polk was affiliated with the school during the 1992-93 school year, primarily as a supervisor of practicum students, but he was no longer an adjunct professor there.

When questioned about listing the William and Mary professorship as a current position, Polk indicated that he had only recently become aware that the appointment had expired.

“I found out that the adjunct professorship expired at the end of last year,” Polk said. “I thought it was still in place.”

The facts concerning the Fielding Institute are more complicated.

Ronald Giannitti, the school’s dean of psychology, said Polk was never hired by that school. “We did talk with him about the possibility of doing some training for us in the (Hampton Roads) area,” Giannitti said, “but we never contracted with him. That program is on hold.”

Polk, however, said a contract was negotiated. “I know I signed paperwork with them,” Polk insisted when asked about the discrepancy.

In August, Polk was released from probation with an unrestricted license. He complied with all terms in the order filed in 2006.