Pubdate: Mon, 11 Jun 2001
Source: Albuquerque Tribune (NM)
Copyright: 2001 The Albuquerque Tribune
Contact:  http://www.abqtrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/11
Author: Sherry Robinson, Tribune reporter

EMBATTLED DOCTOR'S ATTORNEY SEEKS SUPREME COURT RELIEF

Dr. Joan Lewis has asked the state Supreme Court to take superintending 
control over her hearing before the state Board of Medical Examiners.

The board has charged Lewis, an Albuquerque practitioner who specializes in 
patients with severe, chronic pain, with six counts of "injudicious 
prescribing." Lewis has developed a unique program using narcotics, or 
opioids, that measures and tracks the severity of pain and the effects of 
the drugs. Lewis's license to practice in New Mexico rests on the outcome 
of the board proceedings. Groups of patients, doctors and national 
organizations have filed amicus briefs in support of Lewis.

The hearing is scheduled June 20. Lewis's attorney, Frank Spring, says he 
doesn't have enough information to prepare a defense because the board and 
the Attorney General's Office have refused to answer questions.

Spring filed the brief June 5 after state District Judge Carol Vigil 
dismissed a petition seeking appointment of another hearing officer and a 
judgment that the state's Pain Relief Act governs the case. He asks the 
Supreme Court to stay the hearing, appoint an independent hearing officer 
and rule that the Pain Relief Act applies.

The Pain Relief Act provides that health-care providers treating 
intractable pain won't be disciplined if they comply with the board's pain 
relief guidelines. Lewis was a co-author of the guidelines. The board's 
accusation "in all likelihood means that the board believes Dr. Lewis 
administers opioid medications in higher doses than they consider prudent," 
Spring writes in the petition.

A second issue is whether Lewis can get a fair hearing because the board, 
through the Attorney General's Office, has refused to respond to reasonable 
requests for information, Spring says. He argues that the board's president 
and hearing officer, John Romine, has been unduly influenced by the 
Attorney General's Office, which has the dual role of advising the board 
and prosecuting the case. This violates Lewis's right to due process, he says.

"If Dr. Lewis is disciplined for providing medical care, which the Pain 
Relief Act would otherwise allow, then the intent of the Legislature in 
enacting that enlightened law will have been frustrated, Dr. Lewis will 
suffer the ignominy of a dishonor, if not a revocation, of her license to 
practice medicine, and her patients will be relegated to the less 
scientific, less effective care provided by physicians who are wiling to 
conform to the wishes of the board rather than to those who dare to 
effectively treat the needs of patients in intractable pain," Spring wrote 
in the petition.

"If the old guard is allowed to humiliate a practitioner for daring to use 
an empirically effective approach, then this will be a bleak message for 
patients in chronic pain." 
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager