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."