Indicted Kauai doctor’s license suspended over sex with patient
A Kauai doctor indicted in June on 20 counts of unlawfully distributing painkillers to patients had his license suspended last week for having sex with a patient.
Dr. Harold Spear III will not be able to practice medicine until August 2008. He was already unable to prescribe narcotics since June, as part of his release from federal custody.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment in June alleging that Spear, 54, prescribed pain medications, such as oxycodone, OxyContin and methadone, to patients without examining them between April 2005 and March 2006. Spear's "Dial-a-doc" service prescribes drugs to people he interviews by telephone.
According to last week's Board of Medical Examiners order, Spear treated a woman from 1995 until 2000 for chronic lower back pain and fibromyalgia. The woman also suffers from bipolar disorder.
Sometime before March 1999, Spear and the woman, who was not identified, started having sex and later had a child together. Even after she was pregnant, Spear continued to treat her, the board's report indicates.
But in 2003 she submitted a complaint to the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, alleging he would not give her medication unless she had sex with him. She later recanted that statement and wrote a letter saying the sex was consensual and that it was her psychiatrist who forced her to write the letter and sign it, the report stated.
Spear admitted at his hearing last March that he and the woman had consensual sex but that he treated the woman as he would any other patient. Another doctor quoted in the report agreed, saying Spear's treatment fell within the normal guidelines for standard of care.
Another disciplinary charge against Spear, for his 2004 conviction for misdemeanor terroristic threatening and possession of marijuana, was dropped because, according to the hearing officer, they had no effect on his job practicing medicine.
He is also facing another disciplinary charge, but officials at the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs would not comment on the ongoing complaint.
Before reactivating his license, Spear must attend education classes on ethics and prescribing medication and must pay a $2,000 fine.