The board accepted a consent order that said Dr. Harris E. Foster Jr. abused alcohol to excess at various times between 2012 and May of this year. Last week, the cancer center’s website listed Foster as a professor of urology at the Yale School of Medicine and as the director of female urology and neuro-urology at the center in New Haven. After a reporter inquired about his status, the cancer center’s website on Tuesday only listed him as a urology professor.
Mark D’Antonio, a spokesman for Yale New Haven Hospital, said Tuesday that Foster is still affiliated with the cancer center, but he cannot comment further because Yale does not comment on personnel matters.
In signing the consent order, Foster admitted no guilt or wrongdoing but chose not to contest the matter. During the probation, Foster must attend therapy and support group sessions and pass random drug and alcohol tests, the order said. He is also barred from conducting medicine in a solo practice for five years.
The board also approved two cease and desist orders for two women that the state Department of Public Health (DPH) said have been practicing medicine without a license.
In the first case, Zaadia Arzu of Stratford agreed to a consent order that said from November 2017 to March, she administered vaccinations, inserted intravenous catheters and administered medication to one or more patients without a medical license. She also used the initials “M.D.” on her business card and a business sign during the same time period, the consent order.
Under the order, Arzu agreed to stop practicing medicine without a license. DPH received a complaint about Arzu in March from a former patient of a medical practice in Stratford, records show.
The board also ordered Lauren Stone of Wilton to stop practicing homeopathy without a license. That branch of medicine embraces a holistic, natural approach to the treatment of the sick.
DPH began an investigation of Stone’s practice in 2016 based on an anonymous complaint. A consent order she agreed to said she treated six patients for a variety of ailments, including joint pain, liver dysfunction, autism, Lyme disease, infections, liver and kidney inflammation, anxiety and “stabbing stomach pain” with plant extracts as antimicrobials, non-prescription substances and colloidal silver. The FDA has taken action against some manufacturers of colloidal silver products for making unproven health claims.
While admitting none of the allegations, Stone chose not to contest the matter and agreed to stop practicing medicine without a license, the consent order said.
Mariella LaRosa, Stone’s Waterbury attorney, said that Stone has a master’s degree in nutrition sciences and believed she was practicing appropriately in that field while her patients continued to be under the care of physicians.
But board member Dr. Daniel Rissi said, “She was making diagnoses and that clearly is the practice of medicine.”
The board also dropped the charges against a Weston psychiatrist who had been accused of letting his secretary sign prescriptions for controlled substances for herself and for patients he had not examined. The action came because Dr. Harry Brown has voluntarily surrendered his medical license, DPH Staff Attorney David Tilles said.
In August, the board rejected a consent order that would have imposed a $25,000 fine against Brown, with some members saying the proposed penalty was too lenient. It would have been the fourth time that Brown had been disciplined by the state board.
