DOCTOR IN PRESCRIPTION CASE KILLS HIMSELF

David Thurman Found Dead In His Office

A doctor accused of improperly prescribing pain medication to patients
killed himself in his Barret Avenue office Monday night, authorities
said. David H. Thurman, 62, died of a gunshot wound in the head,
according to Jo-Ann Farmer, a Jefferson County deputy coroner, who
said yesterday that she pronounced him dead at the scene. He left a
note, but Farmer declined to release it, saying it is not a public
record.

Thurman was found in his office by his wife, who had become worried
when he did not come home on time, Farmer said.

In October, Thurman's medical license was suspended by the Kentucky
Board of Medical Licensure. The board also filed a disciplinary
complaint that accused Thurman of running a "substandard" medical
practice, said J. Fox DeMoisey, Thurman's civil attorney.

The suspension followed an August 2002 complaint alleging that Thurman
had inappropriately prescribed methadone to a patient who later died
of an overdose, according to a 16-page suspension order.

Thurman's suspension was later overturned, but he was prohibited from
writing prescriptions for controlled substances pending the outcome of
a disciplinary hearing, DeMoisey said in an interview last night. A
hearing on that disciplinary complaint has been going on over the past
two to three weeks, DeMoisey said. That hearing was expected to
conclude next month. "We're about ready to turn this thing around,"
said DeMoisey, who had expected to present expert witnesses favorable
to Thurman in the next two weeks. After the hearing concluded, the
hearing officer would have had 60 days to make a recommendation to a
panel of the medical board, which DeMoisey said he expected would have
reviewed Thurman's case in November. "Over the course of time,
(Thurman) believed that he would be vindicated, but the legal process
kept grinding on and on," DeMoisey said. It had been three or four
days since DeMoisey spoke to his client, when they met to go over his
defense.

"That was the most upbeat I've seen him in awhile," he said. A
criminal investigation of Thurman also was under way by Metro
Narcotics police officers and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
agents, according to Thurman's suspension order.

No criminal charges had been filed against Thurman, said Scott C. Cox,
who was his criminal attorney. Cox said Monday night that he had
spoken with Thurman on Friday but that there were no new developments
in the criminal investigation.

"I felt like he was going to come through all this in time," Cox said.
The suspension order said that a DEA investigator told the medical
board that in September 2002, an undercover officer saw Thurman and
got a "cursory examination for (a) stiff back." That officer then got
a prescription for 60 tablets of methadone at 10 milligrams each.

That officer returned a month later and allegedly told Thurman that he
had no pain and that allegedly Thurman "gave him another prescription"
for 120 methadone tablets at 10 milligrams each.

Thurman was a graduate of the University of Louisville's School of
Medicine and a Vietnam veteran who worked as a combat physician, Cox
said. Thurman has been in private practice since 1975, according to
his Web site.