Jury Convicts Former Doctor’s Assistant Of Prescribing Opioids For Non-Medical Purposes
Media outlets offer a look at health care professionals who are facing accusations or charges.
East Bay Times:
Former Doctor’s Assistant In San Leandro Convicted Of Illegally Prescribing Opioids
A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a former doctor’s assistant in San Leandro of 39 counts of distributing opioids and other drugs to people for non-medical purposes, authorities said. David Lague, 61, of San Mateo, distributed such drugs as oxycodone, oxymorphone, methadone, fentanyl and morphine outside the course of his practice and without legitimate medical reason, U.S. Attorney Alex Tse of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California announced. The trial lasted 11 days in front of U.S. District Court Judge Haywood S. Gilliam. The jury acquitted Lague of health care fraud charges. A federal grand jury indicted him on Dec. 5, 2017. (Hurd, 7/25)
The Mercury News:
Two Monterey County Midwives Accused Of Incompetence/Negligence In Death Of Baby
Two midwives from the Monterey Birth & Wellness Center in Monterey have been named in a complaint before the Medical Board of California Department of Consumer Affairs. Caroline Cusenza and Jacqueline Little, both licensed midwives, are two of three principals at the Birth & Wellness Center which opened in late 2017, and are named in the complaint. (Herrera, 7/25)
The New York Times:
50 More Women Sue U.S.C. As Accusations Of Gynecologist’s Abuse Pile Up
The scandal surrounding the three-decade tenure of Dr. George Tyndall, a former gynecologist at the University of Southern California, continued to grow this week as more than 50 additional women sued the university, saying it had failed to protect them from sexual abuse and harassment by Dr. Tyndall. The lawsuits, filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against both Dr. Tyndall and U.S.C., claim that the university concealed years of complaints against Dr. Tyndall’s “sexually charged and deviant comments and behavior” and “allowed him many years of unfettered sexual access to young female students.” (Zaveri, 7/25)
The Modesto Bee:
Jury Convicts Sonora Physician In Accident That Killed Three Near Don Pedro
A jury Wednesday convicted Sonora physician Danny Mundall Anderson on three counts of vehicular manslaughter resulting from an October 2016 crash on La Grange Road. The jurors in Tuolumne County Superior Court held Anderson, 71, responsible for the deaths of Trista Hoffman, then 16, of La Grange; her mother, Tina Hoffman, 51; and Rheinholt Eisemann, 72, of Copperopolis. (Holland, 7/25)