PRISONS' TAINTED DOCTORS

Many Medics Hired After Being Disciplined

One doctor was sanctioned by the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board for
causing brain damage to a 16-month-old boy as she was administering
anesthetics during a tonsillectomy. Another wrote phony prescriptions
to get drugs, the board found. Still another repeatedly handed out
pain medications to patients without bothering to diagnose a sickness.

These are among the physicians employed by the Wisconsin Department of
Corrections to care for the state's prison population.

A Capital Times review of prison doctors' licenses showed that of the
23 physicians employed with the department in April of this year,
four, or 17 percent, have been disciplined by the state Medical
Examining Board for incidents that occurred before the department
hired them. Of 37 physicians on the department's payroll since the
beginning of 2002, eight, or nearly 22 percent, have been disciplined
for incidents that happened either before they were hired or during
their employment with the department.

By comparison, Department of Regulation and Licensing executive
assistant Larry Martin estimates that 1.5 to 2 percent of nearly
23,000 active, licensed physicians in Wisconsin have been disciplined
by the Medical Examining Board.

Department of Corrections Medical Director David Burnett says past
medical board discipline plays a factor in hiring, and officials
carefully consider the infractions before hiring. But they also
consider the doctors' professional conduct since the disciplinary
action, references, board certification and the interview process.

"We will look at somebody's record, take that into account -- How long
a period of time has it been? What was the nature of the action? --
and make what we consider an informed decision on whether we want to
hire that person," he says.

Burnett says the current staff of prison doctors is actually a "higher
caliber over past years," with 70 percent of them board-certified in a
specialty -- most in family or internal medicine -- compared with 30
percent in 2001.

Among those who were hired despite past disciplinary actions by the
Medical Board is Thomas Williams, who oversees medical care at the
prison system's infirmary, located at Dodge Correctional Institution
in Waupun. In Thursday's edition, The Capital Times documented a
litany of complaints about his patient care from nurses, inmates and
outside observers.

An online check on the Department of Regulation and Licensing's Web
site shows that in 1989 Williams, who was hired by corrections in
2004, was disciplined twice by the state Medical Examining Board for
providing inadequate medical care to two patients in 1979 and 1980,
when Williams was working in a private practice.

The board sent Williams back to school for instruction on patient
care, conducting exams, obtaining patients' medical histories and
maintaining records to address his shortcomings.

According to the board's findings, in 1980 Williams failed to examine
a man who came to his office with complaints of dizziness, plugged
ears, nausea and difficulty walking. Williams did no examination, and
instead flushed his ears and prescribed the antihistamine Novafed,
which can be unsafe for people with high blood pressure.

Williams didn't check the man's blood pressure.

Three days later the man's condition worsened. His wife called
Williams' office, but he was not in. Williams' partner told the woman
to immediately get the man to the Waukesha Memorial Hospital emergency
room.

Upon arrival the man's blood pressure was alarmingly high. He died
three weeks later.

Williams said of the man's death: "The outcome was inevitable. I just
didn't recognize the symptoms as quickly as I probably should have."

The wife of the patient who died later sued. The case was dismissed,
but the state court system's Medical Mediation Panel, which screens
medical malpractice claims before they can go to court, determined
that "Williams was negligent, but his negligence was not the cause of
any injuries."

The Medical Board also determined Williams mishandled a 1979 case. He
failed to diagnose a serious cervical disc injury in a patient who had
fallen down some stairs. It was similar pattern: an insufficient exam,
inadequate testing, prescribing medication without a diagnosis.

Williams sent the man, who was suffering weakness and lapses of muscle
coordination, to a specialist, but did not get him an appointment on
an emergency basis. The man had to wait nearly two weeks.

The man later sued, but the case was dismissed, according to records
with the Medical Mediation Panel, The records did not show the reason
for the dismissal.

Another lawsuit against Williams, in 1983, was settled for an
undisclosed amount of money before the Medical Mediation Panel held a
hearing. The case never went to the Medical Examining Board.

Williams said he paid about $1,500 to dispose of the case, which
involved a worker at a junk yard who was pushed by a truck into a pile
of garbage, injuring his back.

"I saw him several times, and then I referred him on to an orthopedic
surgeon," Williams said. "And that's the last I saw of him."

Williams maintains the case had no merit.

"For 1,500 bucks, nobody was going to try to fight that, because it
was totally useless," he said. "I mean, it was a nonsense case anyway,
because I did absolutely nothing wrong."

Of the two cases for which he was disciplined by the Medical Examining
Board, Williams said, "In both these cases I probably could have
fought some of this stuff."

Other current or recent physicians employed with the Department of
Corrections who have had run-ins with the Medical Examining Board include:

. Dr. Scott Hoftiezer: Williams' immediate supervisor at Dodge
Correctional Institution, Hoftiezer has been disciplined by the Medical
Examining Board three times.

He was hired by the Department of Corrections in March
2002.

Hoftiezer's first encounter with the board was in 1985, after a 1984
arrest on drug charges. He was never criminally charged, but his
medical license was made conditional upon completion of treatment and
compliance measures.

Hoftiezer then embarked on a six-year struggle with drug abuse,
culminating in a six-month binge in 1990.

Medical Examining Board findings say that starting in January of that
year Hoftiezer obtained large amounts of Vicodin and other narcotics
by "writing false prescriptions, forging signatures," and "stealing
drugs from friends and family."

He was not criminally charged, but Department of Regulation and
Licensing administrative law judge John Schweitzer called for
Hoftiezer's license to be revoked, charging that his drug use had
"turned him into a liar and a thief, and the evidence is insufficient
to conclude that he is incapable of such behavior again."

The Medical Examining Board rejected Schweitzer's recommendation and
allowed Hoftiezer to continue practicing medicine.

"It's no secret that I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict,"
Hoftiezer said. "It certainly made my life a living hell."

He said he's been clean and sober for 17 years.

"I have absolutely no beef with what the board did back then, and I'm
just glad they gave me the opportunity to demonstrate I could be not
just a sober physician, but somebody who was giving something back to
the community."

. Dr. Vijaya Dasgupta: In 1982 Dasgupta was the anesthesiologist during
a tonsillectomy for a 16-month-old boy when she failed to keep the boy
breathing for several minutes, causing severe brain damage that put the
boy into an institutional setting for life.

The Medical Examining Board restricted her from practicing
anesthesiology, but she was allowed to keep her medical license.

The Department of Corrections hired her in 1987.

In 1997, Dasgupta, working at Oakhill Correctional Institution, was
disciplined by the state Medical Examining Board after failing to
diagnose lung cancer in a 53-year-old man who was suffering shoulder
pain. Dasgupta treated the man with heating pads, anti-inflammatory
drugs, a hand splint and warm water soakings. Six months later the
patient died of the cancer.

Dasgupta retired in 2005, just as the Medical Examining Board was
opening a new investigation involving her failure to perform a biopsy
on a growth in a inmate's groin. It was later found that the growth
was cancerous, the result of lung cancer that had spread. The patient
died.

. Dr. Perry Coalman: In 2001 the Medical Examining Board disciplined
Coalman for handing out pain narcotics to numerous patients at his
private practice, but making no attempt to find the cause of their pain.

Coalman was hired as a limited term employee by Corrections in
November of last year.

The board's findings summarized the treatment of two patients, one
with migraines and one with back pain. But the complaint says Coalman
had "many other patients" that he treated with narcotics without
bothering to determine a medical diagnosis.

"At no time did he record any analysis of what might cause the
patients' pain, what kind of pain the patients experienced, how
frequently it occurred, what exacerbated or relieved it, or what other
treatments had been tried in the past," Medical Board findings say.
"No non-narcotic alternatives are recorded as being attempted for the
patients."

He was also found to have practiced medicine after letting his license
lapse, and for practicing without malpractice insurance. He was also
sanctioned for practicing medicine while lapsing in his payments to
the Patient Compensation Fund.

The findings also say Coalman discontinued his private medical
practice in 2000, but didn't notify patients, left no contact
information, and failed to answer written requests from patients for
medical records, constituting an "abandonment of his patients."

Based on these incidents, in 2001 Coalman's license was suspended for
30 days, and he was ordered to pass a "mini-residency" course.

. Dr. Paulino Belgado: In 1992 the Medical Examining Board disciplined
Belgado and ordered him to complete educational courses after it issued
a five-count complaint against him in the aftermath of the death of an
83-year-old man under his care. The board's findings say his treatment
"fell below the minimum standards of competence established in the
profession" because he failed to order appropriate tests and provide
adequate care.

The Department of Corrections hired Belgado in 1995. He left the
department in 2003.

. Dr. Burton Cox: In the late 1980s or early 1990s, Cox was disciplined
in the states of Kansas and Maine for drug use. In 1992, the Wisconsin
Medical Examining Board agreed to give him a limited license, with the
conditions that he undergo drug abuse treatment and remain free of drugs
and alcohol.

The Department of Corrections hired him in 2003.

. Dr. Enrique Luy: In 1993, the Medical Examining Board disciplined Luy
for accidentally sewing a gauze pad into a patient's shoulder during
surgery. He was faulted for failing to count the gauze pads, and for
failing to perform the standard practice of making a record of how many
pads he had used.

He was hired by the Department of Corrections in 2000.

. Dr. Mohammed Samara: Samara was Williams' immediate predecessor at the
Dodge Correctional infirmary. While working there, his medical license
in the state of Michigan was suspended for six months by the Michigan
Board of Medicine, which ruled that he had failed to "properly and
adequately" assess the mental conditions of two elderly patients in 2002.

Early this year, the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board reprimanded him
over the incident, stating that Samara determined that the two
patients "were not mentally competent, which in fact they were."

The Department of Corrections hired Samara hired in 2003 as the
infirmary physician at Dodge Correctional Institution. He left in 2004.