The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday fined two doctors for inappropriately prescribing drugs and rejected a New Haven doctor’s $5,000 fine, saying it was too lenient.
The board fined Dr. Jeffrey S. Miller of Torrington $5,000 and reprimanded him. A consent order said that for several years, he prescribed hydrocodone with acetaminophen for two of his wife’s relatives without having a doctor-patient relationship with them. The order also said that Miller permitted his wife to purchase the drugs in Connecticut and mail them to her relatives.
Miller chose not to contest the allegations and told the board, “I admit the foolishness.”
The board fined Dr. Robert Dresdner of Wilton $3,000 and reprimanded him for inappropriately prescribing narcotics to two patients without adequately examining them or documenting their treatment in 2014.
New York and Connecticut pharmacies had complained to the state in 2014 about suspected fraudulent prescriptions from Dresdner.
Dresdner, who admitted authorizing the prescriptions, did not contest the allegations and is now retired, records show.
The board unanimously rejected a consent order that would have fined Dr. Rey Ramos of Orange $5,000 and placed his medical license on probation for one year for abandoning a patient who was detoxing from narcotics.
State records show that Ramos, who works at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s Primary Care Center, ended the patient’s care in 2012 without providing for continuing care, prescribed opioids without counseling and prescribed excessive doses of methadone without justifying the doses.
The patient who filed the complaint against Ramos, Andrea Riskin, objected to the proposed penalty in a lengthy letter. Riskin wrote that he was treating her for pain, not substance abuse, and prescribed multiple opioids and told her to “play with the dose.” She wrote that he should have his medical license revoked because after he nearly killed her when he didn’t answer her calls for days while she had severe withdrawal symptoms.
When he did finally see her, she wrote, he screamed “you’re fired” at her and told her to find another doctor.
“He showed utter disregard for my life,’’ Riskin wrote. “He has proven, with the indiscriminate and unlawful way that he prescribed these meds for me, that he is not to be trusted with people’s lives.”
Ramos did not contest the allegations, but board members rejected the fine and asked for a full hearing on Riskin’s complaint.
“The patient’s letter was very distressing and upsetting to me,” board member Dr. Peter Zeman said.
Another board member, Michele Jacklin, said Riskin’s description of her treatment was “traumatizing and horrifying.”
The board also reprimanded Dr. Francesco Lupis of Avon for treating a patient at Westport Urgent Care in 2014 for a hand laceration, but failing to diagnose that the patient had a severed tendon, a consent order said. The board also placed him on probation and ordered him to complete courses in hand trauma management within six months.
Lupis did not contest the allegations. The patient who filed the complaint, Mary M. Maynard, wrote to state officials that Lupis is incompetent and deserved a more severe punishment. She wrote that Lupis called her at home after stitching up her hand and asked if he could bring her a bottle of wine.
Five days later, she said she needed surgery to repair the severed tendon. Maynard wrote that she has since recovered full use of her hand.
Andrea Riskin..? With the cats?