OHIO Deputy coroner faces license revocation

Patients' drug dependencies is one of the reasons.
MANSFIELD (AP) -- The state plans to revoke the medical license of Richland County's deputy coroner next week due to a pattern of problems at her practice.
The State Medical Board voted last month to revoke the license of 80-year-old Mansfield physician Barbara Reed.
Board spokeswoman Joan Wehrle said that after Friday it will be illegal for Reed to practice or see patients.
"Her case was pretty extensive," Wehrle said. "Some of her patients had drug dependencies and they still kept getting refills on medications."
Some of the problems
During a board hearing a doctor testified that Reed gave medications without always conducting tests to confirm medical problems, prescribed addictive medications to patients with signs of addiction and sometimes provided excessive quantities of pills.
Wehrle said that the board found "pervasive" problems and that Reed kept handwritten records on index cards with minimal detail.
Reed testified that her office quit doing throat cultures because they were "worthless" and that she didn't see any connection between alcoholism and abuse of painkillers.
Reed said she has closed her practice but will appeal the decision.
"They were out to get me right from the beginning," Reed said. "They're really after all the older doctors."
The only deputy
She is Richland County's only deputy coroner, taking over for Dr. Stephen Banko when he is unavailable.
Banko put Reed on the county payroll as an intermittent county employee in October 2003. Banko said he plans to continue to employ Reed and await the appeals.
Wehrle said Reed must have a valid license to serve as deputy coroner and could continue during the appeals process only with a stay from a judge.
Reed received her medical degree from Ohio State University in 1949.