Ramanuj Naik, 38 of Chantilly, was arrested by Fairfax County Police last summer for exchanging instant messages with a detective posing as an underage teen.

Naik, an athletic trainer, had his license suspended by the state board of medicine in September as a result of the conviction, according to the order.

He is now a registered sex offender.

When a health professional is suspended by their respective board he or she sometimes has the option to request their license be removed from suspension.

Abhay Aggroia, a doctor in Woodbridge, has a laundry list of violations with the board of medicine.

Abhay told Virginia State Police in 2004 that he had a sexual relationship with a patient, which would have been considered lewd and offensive to other patients, the order says. The doctor also got in trouble for prescribing 40 units of Percocet to a patient with no documented diagnosis. Then, on Nov. 2 2005, Abhay was convicted of one felony charge of dispensing Oxycodone.

In Nov. 2005, Abhay had his license suspended. He just recently filed for reinstatement.

Abhay was denied.

State regulators, upset that Petersburg eye surgeon Willis Madden operated on patients under anesthesia without the necessary safeguards, has suspended the doctor’s license. Madden did not have a current cardiopulmonary resuscitation certificate or qualified help to assist with sedation and his drug locker contained expired medicine, according to the case decision filed by the Virginia Board of Medicine.

The Virginia Board of Medicine suspended the license of Richlands internist Muhhamad Javed on Oct. 1 after finding that the 28-year veteran of health care had sexual relations with four patients, which is prohibited by law, according to the case decision.

Some of the encounters occurred during examinations. He also prescribed controlled substances to multiple patients without proper evaluation and monitoring. He is to spend at least a year assessing and improving his conduct and skills.

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.

David Klein, how ran pain clinics in the Shenandoah Valley, pleaded guilty in 2003 to violating the Clean Air Act. A federal indictment charged Klein with the operation of renovations that were taking place in a building with asbestos material in Staunton. Not a rare thing for little ole’ Staunton to have asbestos, but apparently that material containing the asbestos was not properly disposed.

According to the Department of Justice Klein wasn’t alone:

WASHINGTON, D.C. A federal grand jury in Charlottesville, Va., today returned an indictment charging two men with conspiring to illegally remove asbestos from aging buildings. The defendants recruited untrained homeless men to remove asbestos from properties in Staunton, Va., without providing the necessary safety equipment or training.

Klein went to jail for a year, had 3 months of supervised release (which just ended) and had to pay $25,000 in fines. In 2004, the board reinstated Klein’s license to inactive status. More recently, the board terminated all terms on Klein’s license, as a result of the end of his federal probation. Klein, according to all accounts, now lives in Florida. According to an order filed in 2004, when Klein asked to be reinstated, the doctor expressed the desire to practice medicine in Fla. It is unclear if he is practicing in that stat.

Asbestos can cause the following according to the EPA:

• Asbestosis – Asbestosis is a serious, progressive, long-term non-cancer disease of the lungs. It is caused by inhaling asbestos fibers that irritate lung tissues and cause the tissues to scar. The scarring makes it hard for oxygen to get into the blood. Symptoms of asbestosis include shortness of breath and a dry, crackling sound in the lungs while inhaling. There is no effective treatment for asbestosis.
• Lung Cancer – Lung cancer causes the largest number of deaths related to asbestos exposure. People who work in the mining, milling, manufacturing of asbestos, and those who use asbestos and its products are more likely to develop lung cancer than the general population. The most common symptoms of lung cancer are coughing and a change in breathing. Other symptoms include shortness of breath, persistent chest pains, hoarseness, and anemia. People who have been exposed to asbestos and also are exposed to some other cancer-causing product, such as cigarette smoke, have a greater risk of developing lung cancer than people who have only been exposed to asbestos.
• Mesothelioma – Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that is found in the thin lining (membrane) of the lung, chest, abdomen, and heart and almost all cases are linked to exposure to asbestos. This disease may not show up until many years after asbestos exposure. This is why great efforts are being made to prevent school children from being exposed.

Michael Hryvniak, a doctor from Fairfax, performed a psychiatric evaluation of a patient in April ‘05 who had “multi-faceted and complex psychiatric issues,” according to a consent order filed in May. The order was not available on the database and was sent to me via snail mail. In July, Hryvniak began psychotherapy treatment on the patient and subsequently began a personal and sexual relationship with this patient for about two months that same year (May to July.)

Hryvniak ended the relationship and took a voluntary leave of absence  in August ‘06 as a result of the relationship. Hryvniak checked himself in to a treatment center in Kansas and underwent some major individual psychotherapy and medication management. It is not clear in the order what exactly was wrong with Hyrvniak.

These days, the doctor is attending AA meetings 3-4 times a week. He voluntarily stopped practicing in August during his leave of absence and hopes to practice again with the board’s go ahead.

Hryvniak was apologetic to the board and his profession, the order says.

So, the board has put this guy on indefinite probation.  If he wants to practice again he must win approval from the Executive Director of the Board of Medicine and have a “practice monitor” with whom he meets and discusses cases. Hryvniak must continue undergoing therapy and attend AA meetings. He also has to take some continuing education classes. Hryvniak will be reassessed in 18 months.

The Virginia podiatrist who illegally distributed drugs to a narcotics informant just weeks before the informant was gunned down, is tied in another way to a drug ring in West Virginia.

Knox allowed Maurice Gibson, known to be part of a drug ring, to purchase gun silencers in his name. Knox didn’t think Gibson would use them to harm anyone and canceled the order after White was killed.

I enlisted the help of a reporter who has followed the case, here is what she had to say:

“White actually died on May 19, 2005, before any of the convictions. The Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force had been investigating Gibson and his associates for years, hoping to collect enough evidence to send him to prison and track the drug supply. Along the way, White stepped forward and asked to act as an informant, allegedly out of anger that local drug dealers had hooked his son. Investigators ultimately secured a conviction for Gibson, but they claim
they never found concrete proof of where his drugs came from. This timeline may help if you’re working on anything:

April 29, 2005: Knox authorizes a hydrocodone prescription for Mike White, without seeing him as a patient.

May 19, 2005: Mike White is shot to death outside his business, The Dragon’s Den, in Green Valley. Gibson was at the scene, when an as-yet-unidentified shooter and accomplice drive onto the lot, ask to test-drive a car White was selling and shot him in the parking lot.

May 19, 2005: Gibson is arrested that night on an obstruction charge that was later dropped after a federal grand jury indictment was unsealed, holding him on federal drug charges. Four other drug co-defendants were later arrested.

Oct. 6, 2005: A federal information is unsealed, officially implicating Knox in the hydrocodone distribution.

Jan. 3, 2006: Knox pleads guilty to illegally distributing hydrocodone.

Feb. 21, 2006: Knox gets an “attitude adjustment” from Judge David Faber, after allegedly failing to cooperate with his probation officer and bringing contraband into the federal courthouse. He reportedly brought a small tape recorder and something resembling a box cutter into the courthouse. His attorneys testified they were tools of his trade and a simple oversight on the doctor’s part. Faber tightened Knox’s travel controls and advised him to behave better in the future.

May 16, 2006: Knox is sentenced to pay $5,000 and serve three years on probation for the plea. Although the judge acknowledged the serious nature of the drug offense, he cited a long list of community leaders, former patients and loved ones who had submitted letters asking for leniency.

March 2007: Testimony during an evidenciary pre-sentence hearing in Gibson’s case reveals the alleged silencer deal.

Gibson, who was convicted on 15 drug, money laundering and conspiracy charges in March 2006, is currently set for sentencing in mid-October. Although he was never tried for the murders of White or a Bluefield man who died in 2003, investigators allege he hired the hits and orchestrated the crimes. They’ve introduced a wide array of evidence in effort to encourage the harshest sentence possible on the drug charges.”

Robert Knox, a podiatrist in West Virginia with offices in Southwest Virginia, was convicted last year of the unauthorized distribution of hydrocodone, a felony.

According to an article in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Knox illegally distributed the hydrocodone in April ‘05 to Mike White, a tattoo artist working undercover. Knox first lied, saying that he had seen the undercover informant and had reason for the prescription, when he had not. Knox had treated White a few years prior for a lacerated ear, but had not seen him since. Knox was sentenced to probation for three years and had to pay a $5,000 fine, according to the consent order.

Mike White owned a tattoo parlor and acted as an informant for Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crime Task Force.

But get this. White was gunned downed a little over two weeks after the incident that led to Knox’s charge.

The article reads: “Well-known and well-connected in both the legal and drug communities, White had been secretly collecting evidence for drug investigators for more than a year when he died. As a result of the surveillance he secured, Maurice and Tonya Gibson, Christina “Tina” Arnoto, Robert “Boo Boo” Gravely and Hector “Chico” Reinat were all charged with a variety of drug distribution, conspiracy and money laundering offenses.”

On July 11 ‘06, about two months after his conviction, the West Virginia Board of Medicine revoked Knox’s license to practice podiatry in West Virginia.

There was also a $100,000 malpractice settlement against Knox filed in Aug. ‘01. In seventeen years,there have been 108 malpractice suits against podiatrists in Virginia, according to the National Practitioner Data bank.

Knox promised the Virginia board that if his license was reinstated he would not telephone in prescriptions for patients and he would provide patient care only in his office, except for house calls for invalid patients.

Knox’s Virginia license was reinstated in late June. He has to enroll in some continuing education classes and is on probation.

I’m not making any allegations here. It’s just unclear to me how a doctor’s license can be suspended in one state and reinstated in another. What does this say about the uniformity of health professional expectations?

A nurse in Pearisburg had her license revoked in June.

Valerie Sylvester worked at Riverview Nursing Home in Rich Creek. In Oct. ‘05, Sylvester provided care to a resident with “profound mental retardation and cerebral palsy,” the order reads. Sylvester physically restrained the patient several times during her shift, forcing the the patient to drink and take her medicine.  Sylvester advised that other nurse aides use a similar technique in getting the resident to take her meds.

The patient started vomiting and had to be taken to the E.R. at Carillion Giles Memorial Hospital.  Sylvester resigned before she was fired.  Her license was revoked two years later?

This is not excusable. But I do question the differences in punishment for varying violations. How does this chalk up to others?