Fines & Sanctions

Med Board Fines Yale Doctor $10,000, Cites Five Others

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The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday fined a Yale New Haven Hospital doctor $10,000 for abandoning a patient who was detoxing and reached an agreement with a Norwalk doctor to stop practicing medicine because his lapse in care contributed to the death of a patient. Dr. Martin Perlin of Norwalk admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to stop practicing medicine on Aug. 31. The consent order the board approved Tuesday also reprimands him and places his license on probation. It said that Perlin’s lapses in care contributed to a patient death and serious injury to another patient.

Fines & Sanctions

Stamford Psychiatrist Fined; Hamden Psychiatrist Must Hire Monitor

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A Stamford psychiatrist who fabricated a radiology report was fined $7,000 Tuesday and had her medical license placed on probation for six months by the state Medical Examining Board. At its meeting in Hartford Tuesday, the board also placed the medical license of a Hamden psychiatrist on probation for a year and ordered him to hire a psychiatrist to supervise his practice. The psychiatrist, Dr. Avijit Mitra, has already paid $55,000 in state and federal fines for improperly prescribing controlled substances to himself, his wife and others, state records show. In the first case, Dr. Anna Binder must also complete coursework in professional ethics and patients’ rights under a consent order she signed on March 31. The state Department of Public Health launched an investigation of Binder in October 2014 when Stamford Hospital reported that it had terminated its employment contract with her.

Fines & Sanctions

Doc On Sex Offender Registry Denied License Reinstatement Hearing

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A Greenwich doctor who is a registered sex offender in Connecticut and New York was denied a hearing Tuesday on his request to have his Connecticut medical license reinstated. The state Medical Examining Board – which alarmed some patient advocates in 2011 when it voted to allow Dr. Clifford A. Berken to practice with some restrictions following his arrest on sex charges – denied the request from Berken and his attorney Diana Carlino. The state Department of Public Health had objected to giving him a hearing. Berken, a doctor of internal medicine and gastroenterology, had surrendered his medical privileges at Greenwich Hospital and left his private practice in Greenwich, following his arrest in New York in 2008. In 2010, Berken pleaded guilty to charges by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office in New York that he had engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old boy.

Fines & Sanctions

Med Board Fines Doc For Inappropriate Sexual Contact With Patient

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The state Medical Examining Board fined a New Haven doctor $5,000 on Tuesday for having inappropriate sexual contact with a female patient in 2008. The board found in its memorandum of decision that Dr. Si Hoi Lam had “acted illegally, incompetently and/or negligently in the practice of medicine” during a pre-operative exam of the patient on Dec. 19, 2008. His license was placed on probation for six months, and he was ordered to take a course on medical ethics and boundaries. The board also imposed a permanent order that Lam must have a female employee present when examining any female patient.

Anne Doremus

Delays Hamper State’s Doctor Discipline Process

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When Said Nedlouf’s wife, Mary, was terminally ill with metastatic breast cancer in late 2006, Nedlouf was willing to do anything to save her.  He found Dr. Jarir Nakouzi in Bridgeport, a homeopathic doctor who said he could cure Mary’s cancer. During Nakouzi’s treatment of Mary, her husband racked up over $40,000 in charges.  The treatment — which involved a variety of pills and supplements and “bioresonance” therapy, a technique that measures electrical activity at the skin—failed. In early 2007, Mary passed away at the age of 42. When he sought Nakouzi’s help, Nedlouf’s wife was “in and out of consciousness,” he said in a recent interview. Desperate for a cure at the time, he “didn’t think much.

Fines & Sanctions

Med Board Modifies License Restriction Placed On Psychiatrist

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The State Medical Examining Board on Tuesday voted to allow a Trumbull psychiatrist, who was disciplined eight years ago in an unusual case, to practice in a health care facility on a limited basis. The board took the action in the case of Liane Leedom, who was sanctioned for allowing her then-husband to practice medicine without a license. Her ex-husband was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison and five years’ probation for posing as a doctor and sexually assaulting women at the clinic where Leedom was medical director. Leedom now maintains on her website that she was a victim of her ex-husband’s actions as a “con artist.”

Leedom had sought the change in a state order because she has been offered a part-time position seeing patients in a facility where the supervising physician may not always be there, state Department of Public Health records show. The change made by the board will allow her to work when other licensed health care providers will be present.

Fines & Sanctions

Pulmonologist Who Molested Patients To Get Hearing On License Reinstatement

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A Woodbridge pulmonologist who lost his medical license for inappropriate sexual contact during the medical exams of two women has been granted the right to a hearing on whether his license should be reinstated. The state Medical Examining Board voted Tuesday to hold a hearing on whether Dr. Sushil Gupta should be allowed to practice medicine. Gupta, who has not practiced for the past seven years, apologized in writing to the board and the women in November when he asked for his license back. He also wrote that he had completed courses on “professional boundaries” and would not see any female patients without a chaperone. State records show he has been helping to run the business side of the Hamden Sleep Disorders Center.

Fines & Sanctions

Doctor’s License Revoked, Others Fined

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The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday fined an East Lyme doctor $2,000 for lapses in care during cosmetic surgery and revoked the medical license of a Massachusetts psychiatrist who officials said had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient. Dr. Jeffrey Lane, a gynecologist who performed liposuction and laser treatments at a clinic in East Lyme, was also placed on probation for a year. State investigators found that he did not properly instruct his staff in how to sterilize equipment prior to 2011 and allowed an unlicensed employee – his wife – to perform laser procedures, records show. State officials also found that Lane had prescribed drugs to relatives or employees in 2009, 2010 and 2011 without maintaining proper records, reports show. David Tilles, a staff attorney for the state Department of Public Health, said Lane has already paid a $5,000 fine to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for the prescription violations.

Fines & Sanctions

Medical Board Fines Two Docs, Another Surrenders His License

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The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday accepted a Southbury doctor’s voluntary surrender of his medical license, fined a New Milford Hospital anesthesiologist $5,000 and reprimanded and fined a New London doctor $7,000. The board also placed a Coventry doctor on one year’s probation. In addition, after issuing a declaratory ruling that colonic irrigation is a medical procedure that falls within the scope of a physician’s practice and cannot be performed by an unlicensed practitioner, the board agreed to a request to reconsider its decision following a hearing. On the doctor cases, the board:

• Agreed to halt disciplinary proceedings against Michael Ajemian, of Southbury, who surrendered his license in October. His license had been under suspension since June.  According the health department, Ajemian abused alcohol in 2011 to a point where his practice of medicine represented a threat to public health.