Experience
Obtained Reversal of Medical Board Decision
The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas reversed a decision of the State Medical Board of Ohio which suspended a physician assistant’s license after she tested positive on a single EtG test, notwithstanding four years of sobriety demonstrated through negative alcohol screens and direct monitoring from multiple physicians and the Ohio Physician’s Health Program. The court found placing primacy reliance on an EtG test is inappropriate and scientifically unsupported at this time, as the EtG test is highly sensitive to even inadvertent, low-level alcohol exposure, which can provide an unreliable result. The court found that the board erred by relying on the EtG test alone and reversed the decision of the board.
Obtained Reversal of Ohio Board of Nursing Order
The court reversed in part a decision of the Ohio Board of Nursing affecting our client, a nurse. The court stated the board found no evidence our client had an alcohol problem, and that the board erred by imposing monitoring conditions requiring our client to abstain from the ingestion of alcohol. The court ordered the Nursing Board Order be modified to remove this requirement.
Obtained Reversal of Stayed License Decision
The 10th District Court of Appeals reversed a decision of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, which affirmed the State Medical Board of Ohio and remanded the case back to the board for further proceedings. The court determined that the board did not act in accordance with law when it imposed a “stayed” license suspension without affording our client, a physician, an opportunity to be heard, and without determining the “threshold” question of whether, when the three day examination was ordered, the board had “reason to believe” the physician was impaired “because of habitual or excessive use of drugs or alcohol.” Upon remand by the court, the board chose to take no action against the physician and dismissed the case.