Board disciplines former prison doctor

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The state medical board on Wednesday disciplined a former Ohio-prison doctor who faced allegations in his private practice of problems with the way he prescribed painkillers.

The board suspended the license of Dr. Myron Shank for three months but said he could continue working during that time. It also ordered Shank to take three medical-education courses within six months on prescribing controlled substances, professional ethics and medical records.

Board members said they felt a proposed six-month suspension was too harsh because they didn’t believe Shank intended to do anything illegal.

Shank said after the board’s hearing he disputed every allegation against him and was deciding whether to appeal.

“The entire case against me was unjustified in every particular,” Shank said.

The allegations didn’t address Shank’s work at Allen Correctional Institution, from which he resigned earlier this year after the state placed him on administrative leave after the suicide of an inmate under his care.

A state medical-board examiner had alleged that Shank didn’t follow up on allegations that patients were selling pain pills he prescribed for them and that he excessively prescribed such pills. He also was accused of failing to recognize that several patients were “drug-seeking” individuals driving suspiciously long distances to see him for pills.

The examiner’s 77-page report on Shank alleges that care he provided to 11 patients between 2003 and 2008 “was below the minimum standard of care” in several ways.

Shank argued to the board in a separate filing that the doctor who reviewed his cases wasn’t qualified to examine chronic pain treatment and that his treatment of patients “met relevant care standards.”

A prisons system review of Shank’s work found that he failed to do proper follow-up with patients and improperly stopped medication and treatment without first meeting with patients.

Medical complaints increased significantly after Shank became the chief medical officer at the prison in Lima, according to the prison system review of Gregory Stamper’s June 1 suicide.

Although only six of those grievances ultimately were upheld, “other indicators clearly suggested that improvement in medical services was necessary,” the report said.

The Ohio Justice and Policy Center, a prisoners’ rights group, has said Stamper was in severe pain from damage to his nervous system but had been refused medication by Shank that helped ease the pain.

The over-prescribing of painkillers is a big issue in Ohio and nationally, as the number of people addicted to painkillers continues to increase. Accidental overdoses are now the leading cause of unintentional death in Ohio and more than a dozen other states, surpassing car crashes.

State and federal officials have accused several Ohio doctors in recent years of participating in so-called pill mills, or cash-for-pills clinics that exploit peoples’ addictions to prescription painkillers.

The medical-board examiner criticized Shank for not being more suspicious of eight patients from southern Ohio who traveled for more than three hours each to see him at his northwest Ohio office.

“This sort of behavior [traveling long distances bypassing closer and capable facilities] is very characteristic of drug-seeking personalities, and it is less than the minimal standard of care for Dr. Shank not to recognize this,” the examiner said.

At a hearing this summer, Shank said he tried to discourage patients from coming so far but said many begged him for treatment.

Shank testified “that the fact that some patients travel a long distance to see him is not a concern — he considers it an honor,” according to the examiner’s report.