By Kinsey Grant
A Lexington emergency room doctor’s license has been suspended after the Virginia Board of Medicine determined he prescribed narcotics to two female patients with whom he had intimate relationships.
Dr. Stanley Heatwole, 72, has been a practicing physician for 47 years and worked at Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital. In an order issued Jan. 23, the medical board found Heatwole in violation of six of its regulations and suspended his license to practice medicine and surgery for at least two years.
According to the board’s order, Heatwole prescribed narcotics including oxycodone and hydrocodone to patients who were showing clear drug-seeking behavior.
Heatwole’s lawyers, Michael Goodman and Eileen Talamante, and Carilion Stonewall Jackson Hospital officials did not respond to several requests for comment.
The medical board’s order identifies the patients involved only as Patient A and Patient B. According to the board, Patient A was seen by various physicians at least 30 times, and Patient B at least 74 times, between 2008 and 2014.
After investigating, the board concluded that Heatwole engaged in a romantic and sexual relationship with Patient A from June 2008 to 2013. On at least nine occasions, Heatwole prescribed narcotics for Patient A when she was not admitted to the hospital, the order says.
The medical board criticized Heatwole for either failing to recognize or ignoring Patient A’s drug-seeking behavior. According to the board, Patient A’s urine tested positive for cocaine, opiates, barbiturates, benzodiazepines and amphetamines in August and November 2009 and in June 2014. The board found that Heatwole prescribed drugs to her knowing of the positive urine test and identifiable drug-seeking behavior.
Patient B, the medical board said, received prescriptions for narcotics from Heatwole 17 times during consecutive emergency room visits in eight months in 2013. The order says Patient B had left the hospital in anger in 2012 after being refused the drug Percocet only three days after filling a prescription for the same drug. She had complained of tooth pain.
The medical board’s order states: “Hospital records show that Dr. Heatwole treated Patient B on 35 occasions in the [emergency room] for complaints of flank/abdominal pain and tooth pain, and despite the fact that her pain did not resolve, Dr. Heatwole ordered minimal diagnostic testing and generally failed to refer the patient to other practitioners for treatment, but rather continued to regularly prescribe her narcotics, to include Dilaudid, Percocet, Vicodin, and morphine.”
The order says Heatwole took Patient B to a medical conference in February 2014, where law officers told him that Patient B had tried to forge his signature on multiple prescriptions after stealing Heatwole’s prescription pad from his car. Patient B attempted to fill the prescriptions in Covington.
According to the board, Heatwole identified Patient B in a photo for police, then told law officers that Patient B was a “personal friend” and that he would “take care of it.”
When Patient B stole Heatwole’s prescription pad again and attempted to fill a prescription in Salem, the Virginia Department of Health Professions launched an investigation. Heatwole told the department he was shocked to learn Patient B had substance abuse problems.
Last month’s action is not the first time Heatwole has been cited by the medical board. In September 2011 Heatwole was reprimanded for failing to recognize and treat abnormal test results for a patient who appeared at the emergency room two days in a row, according to board documents.
William Harp, a psychiatrist and executive director of the medical board, said a reprimand is a declaration from the board that the licensee has violated a law or regulation.
“A reprimand does not impose any restrictions on the license,” Harp said by email. “A reprimand is less serious than probation, suspension and revocation.”
While the medical board conducted its more recent investigation, Heatwole completed two courses on proper prescription of controlled drugs during November and December at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University.
The federal Drug Enforcement Agency has not acted on the state medical board’s action. But he could face revocation of his DEA registration, which gives him the ability to prescribe drugs to patients, DEA spokeswoman Barbara Carreno said.
“If [doctors] lose their medical license, they will likely lose their DEA license,” Carreno said.
Carreno said most cases like Heatwole’s do not become criminal prosecutions but are treated with administrative sanctions.
One such sanction is the possible removal of Heatwole’s license, Department of Health Professions Director of Communications Diane Powers said.
“Revocation of a license is the most serious sanction allowed by law,” Powers said in an email. “It means that the individual cannot practice or prescribe drugs.”