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Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners v. Davis3/9/1995
Respondent, Roger Woods Davis, appeals from the order of the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners (Board) revoking his license to practice medicine. We affirm.
Respondent first became addicted to drugs in the late 1960s during his medical residency when, suffering from a sleep disorder, he began self-administration of sodium pentothal, a barbiturate, taken from an anesthesia preparation room. He continued this practice on a regular basis for nearly three years until his use of barbiturates was discovered and he was taken by police to a hospital and detoxified.
After two subsequent hospitalizations for depression, respondent resigned his residency and entered private practice in Utah. Although he did not obtain medical attention for his continuing sleep disorder, he sought relief by use of tranquilizers, antihistamines, and muscle relaxants.
In 1975, respondent began chronic use of the narcotic Demerol in connection with the sleep ailment. In March 1975, after learning that he had been reported to the Utah medical licensing authority, he took an accidental overdose of Valium, Benadryl, and morphine, and again was hospitalized.
The licensing authority, after disciplinary hearing, found that respondent's self-administration of this drug overdose impaired his ability to practice medicine, and that respondent had repeatedly treated patients for non-existent fractures and had accepted insurance payments for such treatments.
Consequently, respondent's medical license was placed on probation for a minimum of five years conditioned on monthly psychiatrist visits and random urine screening for narcotics.
In 1979, the Utah licensing authority revoked respondent's medical license after finding that respondent had improperly prescribed Demerol for himself, had intercepted Demerol intended for patient use, and had stolen sodium pentothal from a hospital operating room. This revocation, however, was stayed on condition that respondent surrender his federal and state narcotics licenses, that he be prohibited from prescribing controlled substances, that he submit to quarterly psychiatric reports, and that he limit his practice to group or instructional physical and rehabilitative medicine.
In 1984, upon stipulation that respondent had improperly and excessively used sodium pentothal, barbiturates, and Demerol, the Colorado Board of Medical Examiners granted him a three-year probationary license. Respondent successfully completed this probationary period.
As part of his rehabilitative and pain management practice, respondent performed cryoanalgesia, a procedure which freezes nerves with liquid nitrogen. Respondent learned this technique by reviewing articles and manufacturers' videotapes. In an information sheet prepared for distribution to patients, however, he professed to have learned the procedure at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
During cryoanalgesic procedures, respondent administered intramuscular injections of Demerol to his patients. He obtained the Demerol from a hospital pharmacy and kept it in a locked drawer in his office desk.
Early in January 1991, respondent began using Demerol again. By keeping inadequate records of the Demerol used on patients, he diverted enough of the drug that, by the third week of February 1991, he was injecting himself daily.
Colorado Springs police detectives first contacted respondent on February 4, 1991, in connection with an investigation into excessive prescriptions of Ritalin obtained by one of respondent's patients. When they questioned the large volume of Demerol prescriptions in respondent's pharmacy records, respondent
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