EX-CLINIC DIRECTOR PENALIZED $4,000

The former medical director of an Albemarle County methadone clinic has
been slapped with a $4,000 fine for violations that occurred under her watch.

Dr. Dorothy Tompkins has until the end of May to pay the Virginia Board of
Medicine for the seven citations against her. The violations included
dispensing the synthetic opiate without a license and discrepancies
"between the amounts of methadone purchased and available."

I signed a consent order saying that I neither admit nor deny the
allegations," Tompkins said. "And that's my comment."

Dr. William Harp, the Board of Medicine's executive director, declined to
talk about Tompkins' case specifically. Generally speaking, he said,
doctors who come before the board can be exonerated, fined or have their
licenses suspended or revoked.

Fines are a fairly frequently used sanction," Harp said.

In 2004, the state's department of licensing gave Pantops Clinic the choice
of losing its license, filing an appeal or changing ownership because of
numerous violations that occurred since it opened in 2002. Tompkins opted
to sell.

In less than two years of operation, the Pantops clinic racked up 160
violations and became the first such facility in the state to be threatened
with closure. Tompkins was not cited in those violations, though they
occurred during her tenure.

As part of its overall clinic investigation, the state reported that on
more than one occasion methadone fell into the wrong hands. Violations
ranged from providing patients with too many take-home drugs to failing to
ensure that patients weren't getting double doses of methadone by enrolling
in a second clinic.

The investigation also found:

- - One person who overdosed three times told police he had obtained
methadone from a clinic client.

- - A nurse dispensed and administered the drug without a doctor's order.

- - A vial of the clinic's methadone was found in purse of a woman who
fatally overdosed; methadone was determined to be a contributing factor in
her death.

Tompkins claims that some of state's findings were never substantiated.

The person who went into the emergency room had taken methadone but it was
never proven where it came from," Tompkins said. "The woman who died had
multiple drugs in her system."

The facility, now called Addiction Recovery Systems at Pantops, dispenses
methadone and provides drug screening and counseling. It's located on State
Farm Boulevard.

Methadone eliminates severe withdrawal symptoms from heroin, OxyContin and
other opiates. But it's also sought after by some addicts for recreational use.