TALLEY: 'I AM NO LESS FRIGHTENED'

RALEIGH -- Experts on the treatment of pain spent much of Friday telling
the N.C. Medical Board how they felt about the type of care that Dr. Joseph
Talley provided his patients.

Dr. Richard L. Rauck of Winston-Salem, who is the state board's expert
witness, told the board that he felt that Talley's care did not met
acceptable state standards.

Talley's expert witness, Dr. Straton Hill of Houston, disagreed. He said
that Talley had adequate information to make judgments on when it came to
providing treatment regimens for his patients.

When a grueling 12-hour session finally recessed Friday night, Talley
himself said he was still concerned about the process.

"I am no less frightened now than I was before," he said. "But I do not
feel discredited about my own work."

Friday marked the second day of hearings before the N.C. Medical Board.
Board attorneys have accused Talley of deviating from accepted and
prevailing standards of practicing medicine in the way he treats some
patients and prescribes narcotics to them. The hearing is expected to
conclude today.

Talley's medical license could be taken away from him if the board agrees
with the attorneys' allegations. The federal Drug Enforcement
Administration has already suspended his privileges of prescribing
controlled substances and linked Talley to 23 overdose deaths. However,
Talley has not been charged with a crime.

Rauck spent much of Friday on the witness stand, methodically describing,
case by case, the care that Talley gave his patients. Rauck said that in
many instances Talley would prescribe powerful narcotics without providing
physical exams to his patients.

"In any given patient, the symptom of pain may mean many different things,"
Rauck said. He said that Talley also did not order laboratory tests, which
could help pinpoint problems and help determine if patients are taking
their medicine. If other drugs are being used, such lab work could help
determine that, he said.

Rauck also said that Talley did not make sure that informed-consent
contracts, which provide for a patient to get prescriptions filled at one
pharmacy, were being adhered to.

Hill disagreed with Rauck's conclusions. He said that ordering lab tests to
check up on patients for drug abuse went against the trust that needs to be
built between a doctor and a patient.

"It's almost as if your patients are suspects," Hill said. "You do not
introduce an element of suspicion to every patient and say, 'Take your
clothes off and let me strip-search you.'"

Hill said that he believed that Talley had sufficient information available
to treat the patients. And he said he did not think that a doctor should be
punished for failure to conduct a physical examination.

Rauck, during his testimony, said that he felt that some changes in the
medical regimen were inappropriate. And he said that Talley did ascertain
from a female patient who could become pregnant whether, in fact, she was
pregnant. He testified that the patient did become pregnant while under
Talley's care.

On cross examination, however, Rauck noted that initials on a medical
indicated that the woman had been seen by Talley's associate, not Talley
himself, at a point when the woman was five-months pregnant.

Talley also took the witness stand Friday and discussed the treatment he
gave a number of patients.

He said he was surprised when he learned that one of his patients had
overdosed and was found dead on his kitchen floor.

"I thought everything was going well until his sister told me that he had
died on the kitchen floor," he said.