Written By: Kate Farrish
A Stamford ophthalmologist was fined $4,500 Tuesday by the state Medical Examining Board for performing a laser treatment on the wrong eye of a glaucoma patient.
Dr. Gregory Gallousis performed the procedure in 2012 on the right eye of a glaucoma patient instead of the left eye, state Department of Public Health records show.
The patient was supposed to have surgery on both eyes, but not on the same day, Matthew Antonetti, a principal attorney for DPH, told the board. Gallousis agreed to the fine by signing a consent order with the state.
On Tuesday, the board rejected a consent order that would have fined Dr. Alkesh Patel of Southington $5,000 and reprimanded him for prescribing large amounts of the painkiller Dilaudid in 2012 for his wife, an employee and a patient, state records show.
The drugs included 90 doses for Patel’s wife, who is a pediatrician, and 14 prescriptions for injectable Dilaudid for the employee, records show.
Several board members, including Dr. Henry Jacobs, objected to the small size of the fine for such heavy doses of such a strong painkiller. In 35 years as a physician, Jacobs said, he has never prescribed injectable Dilaudid.
“These are industrial doses,’’ said Dr. C. Steven Wolf, another board member.
The board decided to hold a hearing on Patel’s case, which could lead to a more severe punishment.
In other business, the board reprimanded Dr. Glen Brooks, an anesthesiologist from Sands Point, NY, and placed him on three years’ probation for professional misconduct in New York State.
In 2012, Brooks, who does not practice in Connecticut, was fined $10,000, placed on three years’ probation and reprimanded by New York officials for submitting billing records for anesthesia between 2004 and 2008 that indicated procedures were performed on different dates when they had actually been performed on the same day.
The medical board took the action based on a 2011 provision in state law that allows it to act against the licenses of doctors who have been disciplined in other states solely based on findings by officials in those jurisdictions.
The state legislature had tightened that provision to allow such reciprocal action a few months after the Conn. Health I-Team had reported that many doctors who had been disciplined in other states were practicing freely in Connecticut without any restrictions on their licenses.
