By Kate Farrish

The state Medical Examining Board fined a Greenwich doctor $3,000 on Tuesday for failing to justify prescribing high doses of opioids for patients in 2015 and 2016.

The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Francis X. Walsh, placed his license on probation for six months and ordered him to take courses in medical documentation and controlled substance prescribing, a consent order he agreed to said.

In prescribing the drugs in his office practice, Walsh failed to properly document that he had examined the patients and failed to justify “potentially dangerous dosing and combinations of medications,” the order said.

During the probation, Walsh must hire a doctor to review his office practice. Walsh has surrendered his state registration to prescribe controlled substances in that practice, state records show.

He can still prescribe drugs at the Nathaniel Witherell nursing home in Greenwich, where he is the medical director, records show. In signing the consent order, Walsh chose not to contest the allegations against him.

Board members Jean Rexford and Michele Jacklin voted against the consent order, saying the fine was not high enough given the serious nature of the allegations.

“At what point do we take a bigger action” against the over-prescribing of opioids, Rexford said. “This is unacceptable.”

David Tilles, a staff attorney for the state Department of Public Health, responded that the department believes the penalty is sufficient because Walsh has made substantial improvements in his prescribing practices and because he is only prescribing controlled substances now at the nursing home, where there is oversight.

Dr. Andrew Yuan, a board member, agreed with Tilles.  “I think the public is protected,’’ he said.

The board also ordered David Landi of Bristol to cease the practice of medicine without a license after DPH alleged that in April 2016, he administered a penile injection to a patient to treat erectile dysfunction, records show. Landi administered the drug at a men’s health clinic in Cromwell, records show.

Landi was the owner and operator of the clinic, which has since closed, Tilles said. Landi showed a physician who was affiliated with the clinic how to inject the medication, but the doctor cut all ties with the clinic after one day or so, Tilles told the board.

Landi agreed in a consent order with the board to stop practicing medicine without a license.

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