By Lisa Backus
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The state Medical Examining Board last month revoked the license of a Shelton physician who failed to attend required mental health therapy sessions and fined four physicians for a variety of issues involving patient care.
On Dec. 21, the board revoked the medical license of Dr. Nami Bayan, which had been under suspension since May 1, 2019. Bayan’s license to practice medicine was initially suspended for two years and he was ordered to participate in therapy sessions at least twice a month after he exhibited signs of a mental health issue, a disciplinary report said.
In 2018 Bayan, a surgeon who worked at H & B Quality Medical Care in Shelton, had sent repeated e-mails to the state Department of Public Health (DPH) indicating he believed the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack based on a report he made, documents said. The board temporarily suspended his license in December 2018, saying Bayan “presented a clear and immediate danger to public health and safety.”
DPH investigators learned in 2020 that Bayan had violated the terms of the 2019 discipline by failing to show up for therapy sessions over the course of months, documents said. After a hearing on whether Bayan violated the terms of his discipline, the board voted to revoke his license permanently.
The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Michael Imevbore, a pulmonary physician with CT Pulmonary Specialists in New Haven, and required him to pay a $5,000 fine after a DPH investigation found that he failed to check the state’s prescription monitoring and reporting system before writing prescriptions for more than 200 patients between July 2018 and May 2020, documents said.
Imevbore also wrote controlled substance prescriptions for another 70 patients, but only checked the state’s prescription monitoring program for half of them, from May 2020 to November 2020, investigators concluded. Since December of 2020 he has properly used the reporting system, DHP officials said.
Under the consent order approved by the board, Imevbore will be on probation for a year, during which he is required to have 20% of his patient files reviewed for his use of the prescription reporting system. The state Department of Consumer Protection Drug Control Division, which runs the prescription monitoring program, will do two random audits of his compliance with the system in the next year, the order said.
The board also fined three other physicians.
Dr. J. James Bruno II, of Urology Associates in Danbury, was fined $1,000 after he failed to meet the standard of care by not reviewing a scan before he performed a cystoscopy on a patient in 2019 to remove a kidney stone. The scan revealed that the kidney stone had been passed prior to the procedure, documents said. The board also reprimanded Bruno’s license.
Dr. Rania Rifaey, of Avon, was fined $1,000 after injecting numbing medication and other drugs used to treat inflammation on the wrong side of a patient suffering from bursitis in October of 2018, documents said. Rifaey’s license was also reprimanded.
Dr. Murray Wellner was fined $1,000 and his license placed on probation for nine months after an investigation found that he had used illegible handwriting to document the files of at least three patients from 2013 to 2020, according to DPH.
During the probationary period, Wellner, a West Hartford physician, will have to undergo a review of 20% of his patient files to check for legibility, the consent order said. Wellner had been previously disciplined by the board in 2011 after an investigation revealed he had inappropriately prescribed a drug to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder for eight patients who didn’t need the treatment.
The board also reprimanded the Connecticut license of a physician who was disciplined by California authorities for diagnosing and treating patients through telehealth without proper assessment and evaluation, documents said.
Dr. Ho Dzung Anh, a physician practicing in California, was disciplined in California after he prescribed antibiotics for two undercover investigators posing as telehealth patients, documents said. Anh holds medical licenses in several states, the DPH said.
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