Whitlow v. Board of Medical Examiners

248 Cal. App. 2d 478, 56 Cal. Rptr. 525, 1967 Cal. App. LEXIS 1651
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 10, 1967
DocketCiv. 28946
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 248 Cal. App. 2d 478 (Whitlow v. Board of Medical Examiners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whitlow v. Board of Medical Examiners, 248 Cal. App. 2d 478, 56 Cal. Rptr. 525, 1967 Cal. App. LEXIS 1651 (Cal. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

SHINN, J. *

The appeal is from a judgment denying a petition of Joseph E. Whitlow for a writ of mandate annulling an order of the State Board of Medical Examiners suspending appellant’s certificate for the practice of medicine and surgery. The order placed appellant on probation for five years, one of the -conditions of probation being that appellant desist from the practice of medicine and surgery for 180 days. Execution of the order of suspension has been stayed pending the determination of the instant proceeding.

On January 28, 1963, invoking the authority of the board to revoke or suspend certificates of licensees for unprofessional conduct conferred by sections 2360 and 2361 of the Business and Professions Code, the executive secretary of the board filed an accusation against appellant of unprofessional conduct in the issuance of prescriptions for dangerous drugs in violation of section 2399.5 of the Business and Professions Code, which at that time defined as unprofessional conduct the issuance of prescriptions for dangerous drugs “without either prior examination of the patient or medical indication thereof.” (In 1965 the word “therefor” was substituted in place of the word “thereof”.)

It was alleged in the accusation that between February 23d and July 17th of 1962 appellant prescribed separately 30 and 100 tablets of Pentobarbital for D. A. Lyons, for Jack Berg 100 tablets of Dilantin and separate prescriptions on separate occasions of 200 and 300 tablets of Seconal and 100 tablets of Pereodan; for Sandra Frank on each of five separate occasions 100 tablets of Seconal; for Gene Ashton on each of three occasions 100 tablets of Seconal; for Vicki Popov 100 tablets of Seconal; for Ginny Johnson 100 tablets of Seconal; for Edward A. Rogers 100 tablets of Seconal and for Archie Allen 23 prescriptions amounting to 1170 tablets of Doriden. The true names of Gene Ashton, Vicki Popov and Ginny Johnson were respectively Eugene Dague, Vicki Ammons and Virginia Johnson.

In due time a hearing was had before a hearing officer. At the time of the commencement of the hearing, upon motion of the Attorney General, the charges relating to Jack Berg were *481 dismissed. At the conclusion of the evidence the hearing officer made and filed findings and a proposed decision. It was found that as to Lyons there was medical indication sufficient to warrant the issuance of the prescriptions to him; that as to Rogers it was not established by a preponderance of the evidence that the prescriptions were given without medical indication sufficient to warrant issuance of the prescriptions; that as to Allen it was shown that he was suffering from a condition which furnished medical indication sufficient to support the issuance of the prescriptions to him, but that the quantity of the same was not in issue, and no finding was made thereon. It was found that as to Sandra Frank, Ashton, Popov and Johnson appellant had prescribed dangerous drugs without prior examination of the persons and without medical indication thereof as charged in the accusation. For convenience we shall refer to these four persons as patients of appellant. It was found that the acts of appellant constituted unprofessional conduct as defined by section 2399.5 of the code and were cause for disciplinary action pursuant to setion 2360 of the code. The proposed decision of the hearing officer was that the certificate of appellant be revoked but that execution of the order be stayed and appellant be placed on probation for a period of five years upon conditions, one of which being that for a period of 180 days appellant not exercise any of the privileges of his certificate. The findings and the recommended decision of the hearing officer were adopted by the board as a basis for the order which was entered in accordance therewith. The four persons last named were witnesses in the hearing and appellant testified in his own behalf. In the court trial the complete record of the proceedings before the board was received in evidence and the court ruled that no other evidence would be received. In the trial of the petition for mandate the court made findings corresponding with those of the board.

We consider first the contention of appellant that section 2399.5 is confusing, probably meaningless and therefore unenforceable. Appellant says “the meaning of the language ‘or medical indication thereof’ following ‘prior examination’ cannot be ascertained.” This criticism of the language of the section and its meaning was decided adversely to the contention of appellant in Sunseri v. Board of Medical Examiners, 224 Cal.App.2d 309, 313 [36 Cal.Rptr. 553], in which it was said; “Nor do we find any fatal ambiguity in that part of the statute which, in reference to prescribing dangerous drugs, *482 uses the language ‘or medical indication thereof.’ One definition of the word ‘indication’ is a symptom or particular circumstance that indicates the advisability or necessity of.’ (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.) Another definition is: ‘ That which serves to indicate or point out; sign.’ (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (2d ed.).) It seems plain that the phrase ‘medical indication’ as used in the statute simply means the existence of symptoms or the presence of satisfying evidence which suggests to a doctor the need or advisability for prescribing the use of a dangerous drug. We think the language used in the statute is sufficiently definite to provide a satisfactory standard of conduct for the medical profession whose activities it is designed to regulate, and that it is not subject to the constitutional attack leveled at it by appellant. (Lorenson v. Superior Court, 35 Cal.2d 49, 60 [216 P.2d 859] ; People v. Ring, 26 Cal.App.2d Supp. 768, 771-772 [70 P.2d 281].) ” Moreover, as we shall see, Dr. Whitlow did not act or refrain from acting under a misunderstanding of the nature of his professional duties in issuing prescriptions for dangerous drugs.

The next contention to be considered is that the findings of the board and the court do not support the judgment.

The court found that the hearing officer found that the petitioner prescribed Seconal for Sandra Frank on five occasions, for Eugene Dague on three occasions, for Vicki Ammons on one occasion and for Virginia Johnson on one occasion without a prior examination of said persons for whom he was prescribing and without medical indication thereof. The court also found “the Order and Decision of the Board is supported by its Findings; each and all of its Findings are supported by competent evidence and by the weight of that evidence.” The court also found: “That each of the Prescriptions found to have been issued by Petitioner by the Finding of Respondent was issued and sold by Petitioner to each person without any medical examination or medical indication of the need thereof, and with knowledge that the said drugs thus prescribed were not reasonably necessary to the health of the person for whom it was prescribed nor to the treatment of any morbidity.

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Bluebook (online)
248 Cal. App. 2d 478, 56 Cal. Rptr. 525, 1967 Cal. App. LEXIS 1651, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whitlow-v-board-of-medical-examiners-calctapp-1967.