The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday placed a Westport doctor on probation for abusing alcohol and continued a requirement that a Woodbridge pulmonologist who had sexual contact with two women during medical exams have a chaperone present when examining female patients.

The board unanimously rejected a request from the pulmonologist, Dr. Sushil Gupta, that the chaperone requirement be dropped. His lawyer, James Biondo of Stamford, wrote to the board that the restriction was keeping Gupta from gaining privileges at a hospital. Biondo wrote that Gupta will never stop using a chaperone even if the restriction is lifted because Gupta “will forever be at risk for a predatory patient given his history.”

At the meeting, Biondo said Yale New Haven Hospital and Griffin Hospital have rejected Gupta’s request for privileges, creating a hardship when Gupta’s patients are hospitalized.

Over the objections of state Department of Public Health lawyers, the board reinstated Gupta’s medical license in 2013 and placed it on probation for one year.

The board had found in 2006 that the testimony of the two women was credible when they described him massaging their breasts during a pulmonary exam. One of them said he also pulled down her pants, touched her pubic area and said she was “hot,” state records show.

Gupta was arrested and a jury found him guilty of two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault in 2005, records show. He appealed the verdict, and the state Appellate Court set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial. In 2010, the state Supreme Court agreed, upholding the reversal of the conviction.

That year, a judge granted Gupta accelerated rehabilitation, a special form of probation.

In 2012, Gupta completed the probation and the criminal charges were dropped, records show.

On Tuesday, DPH Principal Attorney Matthew Antonetti argued against lifting the chaperone requirement.

“In 2003, he showed awful judgment,” Antonetti said of Gupta. “The state has a right to be concerned about this physician’s judgment.”

On Tuesday, the board reinstated the medical license of Dr. David S. Parnas, a family medicine physician from Westport, but imposed a four-year probation with restrictions including random drug and alcohol tests.

In June, the board had temporarily suspended Parnas’ license, saying his heavy use of alcohol posed an immediate danger to the public. DPH records show that Parnas underwent alcohol detoxification at Norwalk Hospital in February, when he reported that he drank a pint of vodka a day for the past two years.

This is the third time this year that the medical board has disciplined Parnas. In March, it had reprimanded him and placed his license on probation for two years for his failure to appropriately prescribe narcotics to patients.

In other action Tuesday, the board approved a cease and desist order to stop an East Hartford hairdresser from using an electrosurgical unit because it determined that she was practicing medicine without a license.

State records show that Hyo Jin Kim, who owns Kim’s Hair Salon, used the device in November 2015 to remove a birthmark on a salon client. The client suffered scrapes on the skin. Once Kim learned a complaint had been filed with DPH in January, she stopped using the machine and discarded it, records show.

The state Medical Examining Board disciplined four doctors on Tuesday, including fining a Stonington doctor $8,000 for failing to provide adequate follow-up care for a patient who later died of cancer.

Dr. David Burchenal of Stonington was also reprimanded and placed on three years of probation under a consent order approved by the board. During the probation, Burchenal must hire a physician to randomly review his patient records and must take a course in assessing urinary tract disorders.

In November, the board had rejected a $3,000 fine against Burchenal, with some members saying they wanted a stiffer penalty.

Burchenal failed to follow up on test results that showed his patient, George A. Ruffo, had abnormally high red blood cell counts in 2011 and 2012, state records show. In December 2014, Ruffo complained of blood in the urine and Burchenal did not order any treatment, records show.

Photo Provided By Ruffo Family

George A. Ruffo

Within a month, Ruffo, 69, a lawyer from Stonington, died of cancer of the urinary system. His wife, Carol Ruffo, who filed a complaint with the state Department of Public Health about Burchenal’s care of her husband, said his death came just two weeks after he was diagnosed with stage four cancer.

Burchenal did not contest the allegations. His lawyer, Eugene Cooney of Hartford, told the board in November that it was an oversight with the patient’s lab reports and the doctor has since thoroughly reviewed his practice to make sure nothing like it would happen again.

In a written statement handed out by her son David Rohde after the decision, Carol Ruffo said she was pleased with the board’s action.

“Our intent has been, and always will be, to protect other patients whose tests are not being properly read and discussed with them,’’ she wrote. “Clearly, a life could have been saved, or at least extended, had action been taken in 2011 when the first alarming test reports appeared in a routine physical.”

The board also fined Dr. Josef Burton, a pediatrician from New Milford, $5,000 after a hearing panel found that he had failed to adequately treat two patients with addiction and mental health diagnoses.

Burton was also placed on probation for two years and permanently banned from prescribing some controlled substances. He must also complete courses on recordkeeping and addiction and mental health in children and adolescents.

Burton gave one patient with a history of drug addiction prescriptions for methadone and Suboxone, which is used to treat addiction, without consulting with addiction experts, records show.

The second patient was treated for heroin overdoses in hospital emergency rooms three times in 2010 and 2011. The hearing panel found that Burton failed to maintain adequate treatment records for the patient and inappropriately prescribed controlled substances to the patient, records show.

An expert found that Burton never discussed a treatment plan with either patient and “continued to prescribe these dangerous controlled substances to these highly addicted patients,” records show.

Burton told the board Tuesday that the punishment was too stringent and asked that his case not be reported to a national physician database.

While conceding that he made mistakes, Burton said, “My name goes in there forever. That’s my legacy.”

Kathryn Emmett, the board chairperson, told Burton that any time it takes disciplinary action against a doctor, it is reported to the national database.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. Jonathan Parkhurst, a Middlebury internist, and placed him on probation for one year for failing to meet the standard of care in treating seven patients between 2012 and 2015, records show.

A consent order he agreed to states that Parkhurst prescribed controlled substances to the patients without adequately monitoring them, following through with drug tests or documenting the prescriptions. Parkhurst must now take a course in prescribing controlled substances.

Board members Jean Rexford, Michele Jacklin and Dr. C. Steven Wolf voted against the reprimand, with Wolf saying it was too lenient.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Jennifer Matthesen, a cosmetic surgeon from Weston, and fined her $1,000 for failing to maintain adequate medical records in 2014 and 2015 when she prescribed controlled substances for herself, her family members and a nurse working at a Mount Kisco, New York facility.

Matthesen also improperly prescribed controlled substances in New York in 2014 and 2015 while using her Connecticut Drug Enforcement Agency number, the consent order she agreed to said.

Jacklin voted against the fine, saying it was too low.

“I’m not sure it accomplishes anything to fine a doctor $1,000,’’ Jacklin said.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday disciplined a Fairfield pulmonologist for improperly prescribing opioids and a former UConn Health doctor who had stolen medication from the health center for his private practice.

Dr. Igal Staw, who works at Respiratory Associates in Fairfield, was reprimanded, fined $7,500 and has been permanently restricted from prescribing opioids, under a consent order he agreed to. He also must hire a supervisor to monitor his drug prescriptions and will be placed on two years of probation if his state registration to prescribe controlled substances is ever reinstated, the order said.

In 2012 and 2013, Staw prescribed opioids to eight patients with chronic pain, including some who may have been abusing the medicine, the order said. He also failed to document the reasons for the prescriptions or justify in the patients’ medical charts why he was increasing the doses, state records show.

In an unrelated case in 2008 in Norwalk, Staw was sentenced to two years of probation for scamming insurance companies out of $171,000, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Staw, then 70, of Westport, admitted to engaging in health care fraud in 2006 by claiming to insurance companies that he had provided physician services to patients when the patients had actually received physical and massage therapy and nutritional counseling by non-physicians, the press release said.

He paid back the insurance companies and also paid the federal government $250,000 to settle allegations that his medical practice Respiratory Associates, then based in Norwalk, filed false Medicare claims between 2000 and 2006 for the physical and massage therapy, the press release said.

State Department of Public Health records show that in 2008, the medical board had reprimanded Staw and placed him on probation for two years.

In the UConn Health case, the board fined Dr. Micha Abeles of West Hartford $5,000 for stealing Depo-Medrol, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Humira, which is used to treat arthritis, from the hospital’s stock for use in his private practice in Meriden, state records show.

The thefts occurred in 2015 and 2016. Abeles retired in 2016 from his post as associate director of the UConn Multipurpose Arthritis Center, DPH records show. He continues to treat patients part-time in private practice, the records show.

Abeles had been arrested in June of 2016 and charged with one count of second-degree larceny in connection with the thefts, the Hartford Courant reported. In September, Abeles, then 71, was granted a special form of probation for one year, the Courant reported. Abeles had been at UConn for 40 years and replaced the medication he had taken before the arrest, the Courant said. A condition of his probation was that he pay UConn $20,000, the newspaper reported.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. Tom O’Connor of Bloomfield for failing to adequately document physical exams for or provide data to support prescribing testosterone replacement therapy for eight patients between 2010 and 2012, state records show.

The board also placed O’Connor on probation for six months and ordered him to take courses in recordkeeping and the treatment of hypogonadism, a condition in which the body does not produce enough testosterone.

While admitting no wrongdoing, Staw, Abeles and O’Connor did not contest the allegations against them.

The board also restricted the medical license of Dr. Brian McCarthy, an orthopedic surgeon from Torrington, so that he can only engage in the non-clinical practice of medicine or conduct medical research. State records show that he has been diagnosed with an orthopedic condition that may affect his ability to practice medicine and surgery.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Marjorie A. Smith of San Francisco to match a reprimand imposed on her in 2016 by California officials. Officials in that state found that between 2011 and 2013, she failed to adequately document medical services provided to a patient. State law allows the Connecticut board to discipline doctors who have licenses in Connecticut when they have been disciplined in other states.

The board Tuesday also took a rare political stance when it approved a resolution saying it opposed the transfer of $5 from each medical license fee to the state’s general fund rather than having it go to HAVEN, a confidential program that is an alternative to public disciplinary action for health-care professionals who suffer from chemical dependency, emotional or behavioral disorders or physical or mental illness.

In an emotional report to the board, Maureen Sullivan Dinnan, HAVEN’s executive director, said her agency needs the money to properly serve a growing caseload of doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals who need assistance.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy included the transfer of the funds to the general fund in his proposed budget, board members said.

A son and mother who practice medicine in West Hartford were fined a total of $11,500 today by the state Medical Examining Board for prescribing high doses of opioids for patients without monitoring them for drug abuse.

The board fined Dr. Corey Jaquez of the West Hartford Medical Center $7,500 and placed his medical license on probation for a year. They also fined his mother, Janis Jaquez, a physician assistant at the center, $4,000 and placed her license on probation for a year.

Both were ordered to take courses in prescribing drugs and managing chronic pain, which they have already completed, and will have their practice monitored by the state Department of Public Health (DPH) during the probation, under consent orders they agreed to with the board.

DPH records show the charges grew out of a report in 2015 from the state Department of Consumer Protection’s Drug Control Division about the care of three patients between 2010 and 2014. Corey Jaquez failed to adequately supervise his mother and she practiced without appropriate supervision.

DPH staff attorney David Tilles told the board that Corey Jaquez is not restricted from supervising Janis Jaquez. In signing the consent orders, the Jaquezes chose not to contest the allegations.

Though state records did not describe their relationship, their lawyer, John Q. Gale of Hartford, said before the meeting that they are mother and son. He pointed out that during the probation, Janis Jaquez will have to hire an outside physician to monitor her practice, review her records and make periodic reports to DPH.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Ann Tran, a radiologist from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, who was disciplined in Wisconsin in 2016 for failing to appropriately interpret three scans in 2009 in which a “destructive mass” was visible, a consent order Tran signed said.

She has also been disciplined in Maryland, Illinois and Texas, DPH records show. State law in Connecticut allows the board to discipline doctors who have been disciplined in other states if they have a Connecticut medical license.

Though he approved the discipline, Dr. Robert Green, a board member, indicated that Tran was only reprimanded and had to pay $690 in state costs in Wisconsin even though her actions resulted in the death of one of the three patients.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday disciplined five doctors, including fining a Danbury obstetrician $5,000 for her lapses in care in connection with a baby girl’s death during delivery at Greenwich Hospital in June 2015.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Marjan Hedayatzadeh and found that she failed to make an adequate assessment of the baby’s well-being and failed to order an ultrasound of the baby and her twin brother, a consent order that Hedayatzadeh agreed to with the board said.

The order also said that Hedayatzadeh failed to accurately monitor the baby girl’s heart rate during three hours of labor and delivery, the consent order said. In signing the order, Hedayatzadeh did not contest the allegations or admit wrongdoing, the order said. The doctor has completed courses in fetal heart monitoring in the case of twin pregnancies and is now working under a protocol that requires an ultrasound in the case of all labor and deliveries, the order said.

In a letter to the state Department of Public Health, the mother of the baby objected to the penalties, saying they were “insufficient when compared to the harm she caused.” The mother’s name is redacted in the copy of the letter that was made public, but in an announcement of a lawsuit filed against Greenwich Hospital in January, her law firm identified her Lauren E. Sorgen.

The law firm, Silver Golub & Teitell, said that in hopes of preventing future infant fatalities at Greenwich Hospital, Sorgen and her husband, Grant D. Gulyassy, filed the wrongful death lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital and Hedayatzadeh failed to monitor the heartbeat and failed to deliver the girl, Myriam Grace Gulyassy, by emergency Caesarean section. The boy was safely delivered.

The suit claims that the hospital failed to institute proper procedures for the delivery of twins and that led to Myriam’s death of oxygen deprivation.

When the lawsuit was filed, the hospital told the Greenwich Time newspaper that it has instituted additional measures related to high-risk pregnancies.

David Tilles, a DPH staff attorney, told the board that the penalty was appropriate.

“This is obviously a tragic case, but we believe this is a remedy that protects the public going forward,’’ he said, adding that Hedayatzadeh is receiving more extensive supervision in her new practice.

Kathryn Emmett, chairwoman of the medical board, is married to David S. Golub, a partner in the Stamford firm. She recused herself from considering the disciplinary action against Hedayatzadeh.

On Tuesday, the board also disciplined four other doctors. It reprimanded Dr. Stephen Zebrowski of Plainville and placed his medical license on probation for a year for failing to meet the standard care in prescribing and monitoring controlled substances for a patient from 2009 to 2015, a consent order Zebrowski signed said. The patient had chronic pain and a history of substance abuse, the order said.

Zebrowski, who is retired from private practice but works in administration for ProHealth Physicians, did not to contest the allegations, which grew out of a complaint from a person who was fired from Zebrowski’s practice, the consent order said.

During the probation, Zebrowski’s employer must send monthly reports to the state and if he returns to providing direct patient care, he will have to hire a doctor to monitor his practice, the order said. If Zebrowski leaves ProHealth, he will be placed on an additional year’s probation for additional monitoring, DPH Principal Attorney Matthew Antonetti told the board.

Zebrowski’s prescribing practices have been called into question before. In a case that appears unrelated to the case before the medical board, an expert doctor found for the state Workers’ Compensation Commission that Zebrowski had over-prescribed Fentanyl for a patient’s back pain, a 2015 commission report said. The doctor found that Zebrowski’s over-prescribing of Fentanyl patches for the patient, Joseph P. Micale, likely contributed to Micale’s death from a Fentanyl overdose in 2012, the report said.

In 2011, an analysis of drug company records by C-HIT.org found that Zebrowski was the highest prescriber of Oxycontin in Connecticut, dispensing 511 prescriptions – or 200 more than the next highest prescriber.

He also was the second-highest prescriber of Roxicodone, the eighth-highest for Xanax and the fifth-highest for Duragesic, the brand name for the Fentanyl patch. Oxycontin, Roxicodone and Duragesic are narcotic painkillers considered highly addictive and prone to abuse; Xanax is used to treat anxiety.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Donald Berman of Stamford, who is now practicing in Indiana, in connection with a Washington state disciplinary action against him. Washington officials found that in 2014, while working at a hospital in their state, two female patients complained that Berman examined their breasts without their consent, Connecticut state records show. Washington officials found that the exams were not medically warranted, a consent order that Berman signed with Connecticut officials said. Berman chose not to contest the reprimand.

State law allows the Connecticut medical board to discipline doctors with medical licenses in Connecticut if they have been disciplined in other states.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. James Kessler, a radiologist from Roslyn, New York, in connection with findings by New York officials that in 2014, he committed professional misconduct by improperly accessing confidential patient information, records show.

New York officials fined him $10,000 and Pennsylvania officials fined him $5,000 in connection with the incident, records from those states show. Connecticut officials did not fine him, and he did not contest the allegations in a consent order with Connecticut officials.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Ernest Mar of Lakeside, Arizona in connection with disciplinary action taken in Arizona. A consent order Mar signed with the Connecticut board shows that in 2016, Arizona officials reprimanded him and placed his license on probation for two years for failing to properly treat a patient.

Mar failed to disclose that disciplinary action to Connecticut officials in 2016, the order said. In June of this year, Arizona officials also placed his license on probation for one year for improperly treating two patients, the order said.

A Monroe doctor who avoided prison time last year for his role in an extensive insurance fraud scheme was reprimanded Tuesday by the state Medical Examining Board.

The board also decided that Dr. James W. Marshall Jr., 60, who lives in Orange, will have his medical license placed on probation for six months if he renews his registration to prescribe controlled substances. He voluntarily surrendered that registration in 2011 after he was implicated in “Operation Running Man,” a 14-month undercover investigation of auto insurance fraud conducted by the FBI.

A hearing panel of the Medical Examining Board concluded that Marshall, who operates Immediate Medical Care in Monroe, prescribed painkillers such as Vicodin and Percocet 145 times for 75 patients when they were not his patients and he had not examined them, according to the board’s memorandum of decision. Marshall believed the patients had been injured in car accidents, the memo said.

The panel found that Marshall had prescribed the painkillers between 2006 and 2010 as a favor to Francisco Carbone, who was stripped of his medical license by Connecticut officials in 2005 and then implicated in Operation Running Man. The panel, however, said it lacked enough evidence to prove that Marshall knew that Carbone and the prescriptions were part of a scheme to defraud insurance companies.

The FBI said Carbone conspired with attorney Joseph P. Haddad of Orange and Dr. Marc Kirshner, a chiropractor with offices in Bridgeport and Stamford, to exaggerate the auto accident injuries of Haddad’s clients to justify larger insurance settlements. Carbone enlisted Marshall to write the prescriptions, even when the narcotics were not needed, the FBI said.

On March 21, 2011, Marshall pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to illegally distribute prescription narcotics, according to the FBI.

On Aug. 28, 2014, Marshall was fined $5,000 in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, but Judge Stefan R. Underhill did not send him to prison. According to the medical board’s memo, Underhill said that Marshall “acted out of a misplaced sense of compassion for patients he believed were suffering and needed pain medication.” He added that Marshall has “shown remorse of rare depth and sincerity” and had already been supervised by the court for three years.

In July 2014, Carbone was sentenced to two years in federal prison, the FBI said. Last year, Haddad was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison and Kirshner was sentenced to 27 months, the FBI said. Kirshner was also ordered to repay nearly $1.7 million in fraudulent insurance claims, the FBI said.

In an unrelated action, the board fined Dr. Mario Katigbak, a cardiothoracic surgeon from Hartford, $3,500 for failing to review a radiologist’s report for a patient and failing to notify the patient or the primary care physician that the radiologist had recommended a test to rule out a tumor.

Katigbak ordered the scan of a mass in the patient’s lung on Aug. 26, 2010, but failed to follow through, according to a consent order he signed with the board. In agreeing to the fine, he did not admit guilt or wrongdoing, the order said.

The patient’s daughter, from Southbury, filed a complaint with the state Department of Public Health. In a Sept. 16 letter to DPH, she wrote that her mother had died after a cancer diagnosis. By the time it was diagnosed, she wrote, it had spread from her mother’s colon to her liver and ovaries.

In another case Tuesday, the board approved a consent order that included a $5,000 fine of Dr. Michael Mankus of Hamden for prescribing narcotics to several patients without taking a medical history of them or examining them. Some of them were relatives or staff members, the cover sheet of the consent order states.

The order said Mankus also procured injectable Demerol for administration to patients by prescribing it for his office manager, who was not getting injections of the painkiller.

Mankus also failed to document his inventory or dispensing of controlled substances and did not adequately secure his prescription pads, the consent order said.

In addition to the fine, the board also imposed a permanent restriction to keep Mankus from prescribing controlled substances to himself, his family and his office staff.

State records say that Mankus has a physical illness that is now keeping him from practicing medicine and he sold his medical practice in 2014. Under the consent order, he may not resume the practice of medicine in Connecticut without providing 90 days’ notice to DPH.

On Tuesday, the board also approved a consent order that included a $3,500 fine of Dr. Alicia Kerr, an obstetrician and gynecologist from Norwalk, in connection with a patient who in February overdosed on Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug.

Board records show that in January, Kerr prescribed Xanax for a patient who was going to undergo an in-office procedure. DPH alleged that Kerr failed to clearly communicate the dosage to her office staff, resulting in the patient’s admission to a hospital for the overdose.

While admitting no wrongdoing, Kerr agreed to the penalty in the consent order. The order also said that Kerr has changed her office procedures for prescribing medication and has re-trained her staff.

The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday reprimanded a Litchfield physician for his abuse of alcohol and violating professional boundaries with an office employee.

In unrelated cases Tuesday, the board also fined two doctors and a physician assistant and reprimanded a Rhode Island doctor who has a license to practice in Connecticut.

In the Litchfield case, Dr. James O’Halloran III was also reprimanded for prescribing controlled substances for five patients without adequate documentation or safeguards, according to a consent order approved by the board Tuesday. O’Halloran works full-time for the state Department of Correction, but these actions took place in his private practice, the consent order said.

In 2014, he had a personal relationship with an employee and his prescription pad was stolen, David Tilles, a staff attorney for the state Department of Public Health, told the board. The investigation was launched in February 2014 when a pharmacist reported to state officials that a prescription appeared to be forged, Tilles said.

Under the order, O’Halloran’s license was also placed on probation for five years and he is permanently restricted from practicing in a setting by himself. He also must attend therapy sessions, and he agreed to refrain from drinking alcohol or using controlled substances and will have random drug and alcohol tests while on probation.

O’Halloran also agreed to attend an average of 10 support group meetings a month and to provide DPH with evidence of his attendance.

His attorney, David A. Haught of Hartford, said O’Halloran has been on a leave from the correction department that expires Wednesday and has given up his private practice. He said O’Halloran’s urine tests have all been clean since October 2014.

The board also fined two doctors who practice together in Brookfield – Dr. Larry S. Wasser and Dr. Ganesh Natarajan – $2,000 each for allowing unlicensed medical assistants to take X-rays from 2010 to 2015, according to consent orders they each signed.

A former employee of Wasser had complained about the practice to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The doctors have changed their office practices so they are no longer violating state law, the consent orders said.

Their attorney, Barry Cepelewicz of Stamford, told the board that the two pulmonologists were not aware what they were doing was wrong until state officials contacted them.

“They appreciate the serious nature of this,” he said. “As soon as they found out, they have just stopped doing this.”

In another case, the medical board fined a physician assistant from Milford $3,500 for writing controlled substance prescriptions for his adult son without a properly established doctor-patient relationship, state records show.

In 2013 and 2014, Parimal Patel, who worked at an urgent care office, prescribed for his son without the knowledge of his supervising physician, according to a consent order Patel agreed to on Dec. 30.

In January 2014, Patel signed an agreement with the state Department of Consumer Protection in which he said he will not prescribe drugs for himself or his family except in an emergency. In March 2015, he allowed his certificate to prescribed controlled substances to lapse. In addition to the fine, the medical board on Tuesday also reprimanded Patel and said he cannot apply to have his registration reinstated until he completes coursework in prescribing controlled substances.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Carl Schwartz of Barrington, Rhode Island for his actions in Rhode Island, where officials there reprimanded and fined him $650 in 2015 for failing to maintain sufficient medical records. Schwartz, an anesthesiologist, had failed to document a finding of a medical test in a patient’s record, according to a Rhode Island consent order that was read to the board by DPH staff attorney Brittany Allen.

Connecticut law allows the board to discipline doctors who hold Connecticut medical licenses when they are sanctioned for violations in other states.

A Stamford doctor has surrendered his Connecticut medical license rather than face disciplinary charges for letting two unlicensed men perform liposuction on two unsuspecting patients at his spa in Stamford in 2011.

Dr. Marlon Castillo voluntarily surrendered his license Feb. 29, according to a consent order presented to the state Medical Examining Board Tuesday. The board agreed to drop the pending charges against Castillo, who was convicted in New York in 2014 for aiding or abetting in the unauthorized practice of unlicensed medicine.

The board dropped the charges on the advice of lawyers from the state Department of Public Health, who said that continued prosecution of the case was unnecessary because Castillo no longer has a medical license.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a 2014 press release that Castillo acted out of greed when he let Carlos Arango and William Ordonez perform the surgery in 2011 on women without general anesthesia, leaving them permanently disfigured.

Arango admitted to recruiting the two female patients in Queens, New York and that he and Ordonez performed the liposuction with Castillo’s knowledge at Castillo’s office at On Shape Medical Spa on Strawberry Hill Road in Stamford, Schneiderman said.

New York records show that Castillo told patients the men were licensed and lied about his pending criminal case when he tried to renew his medical license in New York in 2013. New York officials have since banned Castillo from practicing medicine.

After pleading guilty in New York on May 8, 2014, Castillo was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to pay $8,700 in restitution to his victims, Schneiderman said.

In other business, the state Medical Examining Board disciplined six doctors on Tuesday, including reprimanding and fining Dr. David L. Johnston of Ridgefield $3,000 for billing Medicare and private insurance companies for services he did not provide.

It also placed Johnston’s medical license on probation for three years and ordered audits of his practice for two years after he resumes billing Medicare and insurance companies.

DPH staff attorney David Tilles said Johnston finished serving a three-month sentence in federal prison in December after pleading guilty earlier in 2015 to federal health-care fraud charges.

Johnston was billing for osteopathic services that he said he had provided but were actually provided by a massage therapist, DPH records show.

Johnston had falsely billed insurers for more than $70,000 in services he did not provide, a consent order approved by the board said.

In addition to the prison sentence, Johnston, who operates the Osteopathic Wellness Center in Ridgefield, was ordered to pay $270,528 to settle civil claims related to the fraud, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

On Tuesday, the board also fined a Norwich doctor $4,000 for failing to secure his prescription pads, leading to several fraudulent prescriptions being taken to local pharmacies.

The board also reprimanded the Norwich doctor, John Paggioli, for pre-signing blank prescriptions and leaving them with his medical assistant, who did not sufficiently secure them when she left work at the end of a day. Paggioli did not contest the allegations, which were laid out in a consent order he signed.

The medical board also reprimanded Dr. David S. Parnas, a family medicine physician from Westport, for his failure to appropriately prescribe narcotics to patients, a consent order he signed said.

The board also placed Parnas’ medical license on probation for two years and DPH will monitor a portion of his medical records. DPH is also requiring him to take courses on prescribing practices and recognizing drug addiction and drug-seeking behavior, the consent order said.

In 2012 and 2013, DPH received referrals from two other state agencies that he was inappropriately prescribing drugs.

In March 2013, Parnas surrendered his permit to prescribe controlled substances, the consent order said. A DPH consultant found that Parnas failed to document narcotic prescription doses, failed to adequately evaluate pain and did not adequately monitor medication use by patients between 2008 and 2013, the consent order said. Parnas did not contest the allegations.

The board also reprimanded and fined a Stamford doctor $2,500 for directing unlicensed office staff to give medication injections to patients.

DPH launched an investigation of Dr. David Lauren, medical director at the AFC Doctors Express urgent care center in Stamford, after receiving an anonymous complaint that unlicensed staff members were giving injections to patients under Lauren’s direction between June 2014 and August 2015, state records show.

In October, Lauren submitted a plan of correction to DPH and hired an advanced practice registered nurse to supervise licensed practical nurses giving the injections at the walk-in clinic, according to a consent order Lauren signed. Lauren did not dispute the allegations against him.

The board also reprimanded a retired New Canaan doctor, Katherine Wagner-Reiss, for prescribing cough medicine with codeine for family members between 2012 and 2014 without doing physical exams or keeping medical records on them.

Her attorney, Matthew Sconziano of Bridgeport, urged the board not to reprimand Wagner-Reiss, a pathologist who retired in 2015 from St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport. He wrote to the board that she was a “model physician” with an “unblemished professional career” for more than 35 years.

He wrote that she prescribed the cough medicine for herself, her husband and her two adult children because she was concerned about the comfort of her family members in the case of an illness. He wrote that she was not aware of the requirement that doctors need to keep formal medical records for family members when writing prescriptions for them.

Sconziano wrote that since Wagner-Reiss has voluntarily surrendered her state registration to prescribe controlled substances, there is no need for a formal reprimand.

On Tuesday, the board reprimanded Dr. Tarek Alasil, an ophthalmologist, who works at Yale-New Haven Hospital, in connection with disciplinary action taken by Massachusetts officials in October 2015.

Massachusetts officials fined Alasil $5,000 and reprimanded him because he failed to report to Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River on April 23, 2012 when he was on call despite three requests for him to come in. The CT board can discipline doctors with Connecticut medical licenses when they have been disciplined by other states.

The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday disciplined six doctors, including fining a Norwalk doctor $5,000 for prescribing high doses of opioids to a prison inmate and other patients without proper safeguards.

The board also suspended the license of a family medicine physician from Westport, saying his excessive drinking of alcohol presents a “clear and immediate danger” to the public.

In the Norwalk case, the board also reprimanded Dr. Martin Perlin and limited his ability to prescribe painkillers.

Between 2013 and 2015, Perlin prescribed high doses of opioids without adhering to standard safeguards, state Department of Public Health records show. One of the patients was incarcerated during the time that Perlin prescribed drugs for him, the records show.

Perlin denied the allegations, but chose not to contest them. Under a consent order, the board imposed a permanent restriction on Perlin’s license barring him from prescribing painkillers except for patients in acute pain, not to exceed 15 days, and for terminally ill patients.

In the Westport case, DPH records show that Dr. David S. Parnas underwent alcohol detoxification at Norwalk Hospital in February, when he reported that he drank a pint of vodka a day for the past two years.

In May, he enrolled in HAVEN, a confidential state program for health-care professionals dealing with substance abuse issues, but records show that he has provided the program with no evidence of abstinence or recovery. DPH officials said they cannot verify that Parnas can practice medicine safely.

Parnas’ attorney, Glenn Gazin of Stamford, told the board that Parnas has been safely working at a New Canaan walk-in clinic without complaint for the past month. The doctor monitoring Parnas’ work has been pleased with the quality of care he is providing, Gazin said. He added that Parnas attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings nearly every day.

This is the second time this year that the medical board has disciplined Parnas. In March, it had reprimanded him and placed his medical license on probation for two years for his failure to appropriately prescribe narcotics to patients.

In March 2013, Parnas surrendered his permit to prescribe controlled substances, a consent order he signed in March said. A DPH consultant found that Parnas failed to document narcotic prescription doses, failed to adequately evaluate pain and did not adequately monitor medication use by patients between 2008 and 2013, the consent order said. Parnas did not contest the allegations.

On Tuesday, the board also fined a family practice physician from New London $2,000, reprimanded him and placed his license on probation for six months for endangering a patient on Dec. 2, 2013, records show.

The patient complained to DPH in 2014 that Dr. Steven P. Johnson let the person drive to the emergency room from Johnson’s office with symptoms of a loss of energy, dizziness and a heart rate of 31. A DPH consultant found that Johnson had placed the patient at “extreme risk” for a heart attack and should have transported the patient by ambulance to the emergency room.

By signing the consent order, Johnson chose not to contest the allegation while admitting no wrongdoing.

Two board members, Michele Jacklin and Dr. Robert Green, voted against the consent order, saying the penalty should have been more severe given the serious nature of the incident.

On Tuesday, the medical board also disciplined three doctors for misconduct or lapses in care in other states. State law allows the Connecticut board to discipline doctors who have licenses in Connecticut when they have been disciplined in other states.

The board reprimanded Dr. Vlad Frenk, an anesthesiologist from Stamford, for writing anesthesia records between 2004 and 2008 indicating two different procedure dates when he knew they were performed on a single patient in New York on a single date. New York officials said he also failed to properly treat two patients, records show.

In 2013, New York officials fined Frenk $10,000 and placed his license on probation for three years, records show. New Jersey officials also reprimanded him in 2015.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Thomas D’Amato of Bayonne, New Jersey, in connection with discipline he had received in New York state in 2015. New York officials had placed his license on probation based on allegations that in 2010, he filed false reports about two patients, saying he had performed psychiatric evaluations on them when he had not, according to a DPH consent order D’Amato signed in March,

The order said D’Amato in 2010 also filed a false report when renewing his New York license, saying he had not resigned any hospital privileges when in fact, he had done so the previous year.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Sharad Kothari of Lenox, Massachusetts in connection with discipline handed out by Massachusetts officials in February.

Officials in that state reprimanded him for giving the superintendent of his building 60 tablets of a narcotic without examining or creating a medical record for the person, DPH records show.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday fined two doctors for inappropriately prescribing drugs and rejected a New Haven doctor’s $5,000 fine, saying it was too lenient.

The board fined Dr. Jeffrey S. Miller of Torrington $5,000 and reprimanded him. A consent order said that for several years, he prescribed hydrocodone with acetaminophen for two of his wife’s relatives without having a doctor-patient relationship with them. The order also said that Miller permitted his wife to purchase the drugs in Connecticut and mail them to her relatives.

Miller chose not to contest the allegations and told the board, “I admit the foolishness.”

The board fined Dr. Robert Dresdner of Wilton $3,000 and reprimanded him for inappropriately prescribing narcotics to two patients without adequately examining them or documenting their treatment in 2014.

New York and Connecticut pharmacies had complained to the state in 2014 about suspected fraudulent prescriptions from Dresdner.

Dresdner, who admitted authorizing the prescriptions, did not contest the allegations and is now retired, records show.

The board unanimously rejected a consent order that would have fined Dr. Rey Ramos of Orange $5,000 and placed his medical license on probation for one year for abandoning a patient who was detoxing from narcotics.

State records show that Ramos, who works at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s Primary Care Center, ended the patient’s care in 2012 without providing for continuing care, prescribed opioids without counseling and prescribed excessive doses of methadone without justifying the doses.

The patient who filed the complaint against Ramos, Andrea Riskin, objected to the proposed penalty in a lengthy letter. Riskin wrote that he was treating her for pain, not substance abuse, and prescribed multiple opioids and told her to “play with the dose.” She wrote that he should have his medical license revoked because after he nearly killed her when he didn’t answer her calls for days while she had severe withdrawal symptoms.

When he did finally see her, she wrote, he screamed “you’re fired” at her and told her to find another doctor.

“He showed utter disregard for my life,’’ Riskin wrote. “He has proven, with the indiscriminate and unlawful way that he prescribed these meds for me, that he is not to be trusted with people’s lives.”

Ramos did not contest the allegations, but board members rejected the fine and asked for a full hearing on Riskin’s complaint.

“The patient’s letter was very distressing and upsetting to me,” board member Dr. Peter Zeman said.

Another board member, Michele Jacklin, said Riskin’s description of her treatment was “traumatizing and horrifying.”

The board also reprimanded Dr. Francesco Lupis of Avon for treating a patient at Westport Urgent Care in 2014 for a hand laceration, but failing to diagnose that the patient had a severed tendon, a consent order said. The board also placed him on probation and ordered him to complete courses in hand trauma management within six months.

Lupis did not contest the allegations. The patient who filed the complaint, Mary M. Maynard, wrote to state officials that Lupis is incompetent and deserved a more severe punishment. She wrote that Lupis called her at home after stitching up her hand and asked if he could bring her a bottle of wine.

Five days later, she said she needed surgery to repair the severed tendon. Maynard wrote that she has since recovered full use of her hand.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday placed a Westport doctor on probation for abusing alcohol and continued a requirement that a Woodbridge pulmonologist who had sexual contact with two women during medical exams have a chaperone present when examining female patients.

The board unanimously rejected a request from the pulmonologist, Dr. Sushil Gupta, that the chaperone requirement be dropped. His lawyer, James Biondo of Stamford, wrote to the board that the restriction was keeping Gupta from gaining privileges at a hospital. Biondo wrote that Gupta will never stop using a chaperone even if the restriction is lifted because Gupta “will forever be at risk for a predatory patient given his history.”

At the meeting, Biondo said Yale New Haven Hospital and Griffin Hospital have rejected Gupta’s request for privileges, creating a hardship when Gupta’s patients are hospitalized.

Over the objections of state Department of Public Health lawyers, the board reinstated Gupta’s medical license in 2013 and placed it on probation for one year.

The board had found in 2006 that the testimony of the two women was credible when they described him massaging their breasts during a pulmonary exam. One of them said he also pulled down her pants, touched her pubic area and said she was “hot,” state records show.

Gupta was arrested and a jury found him guilty of two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault in 2005, records show. He appealed the verdict, and the state Appellate Court set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial. In 2010, the state Supreme Court agreed, upholding the reversal of the conviction.

That year, a judge granted Gupta accelerated rehabilitation, a special form of probation.

In 2012, Gupta completed the probation and the criminal charges were dropped, records show.

On Tuesday, DPH Principal Attorney Matthew Antonetti argued against lifting the chaperone requirement.

“In 2003, he showed awful judgment,” Antonetti said of Gupta. “The state has a right to be concerned about this physician’s judgment.”

On Tuesday, the board reinstated the medical license of Dr. David S. Parnas, a family medicine physician from Westport, but imposed a four-year probation with restrictions including random drug and alcohol tests.

In June, the board had temporarily suspended Parnas’ license, saying his heavy use of alcohol posed an immediate danger to the public. DPH records show that Parnas underwent alcohol detoxification at Norwalk Hospital in February, when he reported that he drank a pint of vodka a day for the past two years.

This is the third time this year that the medical board has disciplined Parnas. In March, it had reprimanded him and placed his license on probation for two years for his failure to appropriately prescribe narcotics to patients.

In other action Tuesday, the board approved a cease and desist order to stop an East Hartford hairdresser from using an electrosurgical unit because it determined that she was practicing medicine without a license.

State records show that Hyo Jin Kim, who owns Kim’s Hair Salon, used the device in November 2015 to remove a birthmark on a salon client. The client suffered scrapes on the skin. Once Kim learned a complaint had been filed with DPH in January, she stopped using the machine and discarded it, records show.

The state Medical Examining Board disciplined four doctors on Tuesday, including fining a Stonington doctor $8,000 for failing to provide adequate follow-up care for a patient who later died of cancer.

Dr. David Burchenal of Stonington was also reprimanded and placed on three years of probation under a consent order approved by the board. During the probation, Burchenal must hire a physician to randomly review his patient records and must take a course in assessing urinary tract disorders.

In November, the board had rejected a $3,000 fine against Burchenal, with some members saying they wanted a stiffer penalty.

Burchenal failed to follow up on test results that showed his patient, George A. Ruffo, had abnormally high red blood cell counts in 2011 and 2012, state records show. In December 2014, Ruffo complained of blood in the urine and Burchenal did not order any treatment, records show.

Photo Provided By Ruffo Family

George A. Ruffo

Within a month, Ruffo, 69, a lawyer from Stonington, died of cancer of the urinary system. His wife, Carol Ruffo, who filed a complaint with the state Department of Public Health about Burchenal’s care of her husband, said his death came just two weeks after he was diagnosed with stage four cancer.

Burchenal did not contest the allegations. His lawyer, Eugene Cooney of Hartford, told the board in November that it was an oversight with the patient’s lab reports and the doctor has since thoroughly reviewed his practice to make sure nothing like it would happen again.

In a written statement handed out by her son David Rohde after the decision, Carol Ruffo said she was pleased with the board’s action.

“Our intent has been, and always will be, to protect other patients whose tests are not being properly read and discussed with them,’’ she wrote. “Clearly, a life could have been saved, or at least extended, had action been taken in 2011 when the first alarming test reports appeared in a routine physical.”

The board also fined Dr. Josef Burton, a pediatrician from New Milford, $5,000 after a hearing panel found that he had failed to adequately treat two patients with addiction and mental health diagnoses.

Burton was also placed on probation for two years and permanently banned from prescribing some controlled substances. He must also complete courses on recordkeeping and addiction and mental health in children and adolescents.

Burton gave one patient with a history of drug addiction prescriptions for methadone and Suboxone, which is used to treat addiction, without consulting with addiction experts, records show.

The second patient was treated for heroin overdoses in hospital emergency rooms three times in 2010 and 2011. The hearing panel found that Burton failed to maintain adequate treatment records for the patient and inappropriately prescribed controlled substances to the patient, records show.

An expert found that Burton never discussed a treatment plan with either patient and “continued to prescribe these dangerous controlled substances to these highly addicted patients,” records show.

Burton told the board Tuesday that the punishment was too stringent and asked that his case not be reported to a national physician database.

While conceding that he made mistakes, Burton said, “My name goes in there forever. That’s my legacy.”

Kathryn Emmett, the board chairperson, told Burton that any time it takes disciplinary action against a doctor, it is reported to the national database.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. Jonathan Parkhurst, a Middlebury internist, and placed him on probation for one year for failing to meet the standard of care in treating seven patients between 2012 and 2015, records show.

A consent order he agreed to states that Parkhurst prescribed controlled substances to the patients without adequately monitoring them, following through with drug tests or documenting the prescriptions. Parkhurst must now take a course in prescribing controlled substances.

Board members Jean Rexford, Michele Jacklin and Dr. C. Steven Wolf voted against the reprimand, with Wolf saying it was too lenient.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Jennifer Matthesen, a cosmetic surgeon from Weston, and fined her $1,000 for failing to maintain adequate medical records in 2014 and 2015 when she prescribed controlled substances for herself, her family members and a nurse working at a Mount Kisco, New York facility.

Matthesen also improperly prescribed controlled substances in New York in 2014 and 2015 while using her Connecticut Drug Enforcement Agency number, the consent order she agreed to said.

Jacklin voted against the fine, saying it was too low.

“I’m not sure it accomplishes anything to fine a doctor $1,000,’’ Jacklin said.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday disciplined a Fairfield pulmonologist for improperly prescribing opioids and a former UConn Health doctor who had stolen medication from the health center for his private practice.

Dr. Igal Staw, who works at Respiratory Associates in Fairfield, was reprimanded, fined $7,500 and has been permanently restricted from prescribing opioids, under a consent order he agreed to. He also must hire a supervisor to monitor his drug prescriptions and will be placed on two years of probation if his state registration to prescribe controlled substances is ever reinstated, the order said.

In 2012 and 2013, Staw prescribed opioids to eight patients with chronic pain, including some who may have been abusing the medicine, the order said. He also failed to document the reasons for the prescriptions or justify in the patients’ medical charts why he was increasing the doses, state records show.

In an unrelated case in 2008 in Norwalk, Staw was sentenced to two years of probation for scamming insurance companies out of $171,000, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Staw, then 70, of Westport, admitted to engaging in health care fraud in 2006 by claiming to insurance companies that he had provided physician services to patients when the patients had actually received physical and massage therapy and nutritional counseling by non-physicians, the press release said.

He paid back the insurance companies and also paid the federal government $250,000 to settle allegations that his medical practice Respiratory Associates, then based in Norwalk, filed false Medicare claims between 2000 and 2006 for the physical and massage therapy, the press release said.

State Department of Public Health records show that in 2008, the medical board had reprimanded Staw and placed him on probation for two years.

In the UConn Health case, the board fined Dr. Micha Abeles of West Hartford $5,000 for stealing Depo-Medrol, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Humira, which is used to treat arthritis, from the hospital’s stock for use in his private practice in Meriden, state records show.

The thefts occurred in 2015 and 2016. Abeles retired in 2016 from his post as associate director of the UConn Multipurpose Arthritis Center, DPH records show. He continues to treat patients part-time in private practice, the records show.

Abeles had been arrested in June of 2016 and charged with one count of second-degree larceny in connection with the thefts, the Hartford Courant reported. In September, Abeles, then 71, was granted a special form of probation for one year, the Courant reported. Abeles had been at UConn for 40 years and replaced the medication he had taken before the arrest, the Courant said. A condition of his probation was that he pay UConn $20,000, the newspaper reported.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. Tom O’Connor of Bloomfield for failing to adequately document physical exams for or provide data to support prescribing testosterone replacement therapy for eight patients between 2010 and 2012, state records show.

The board also placed O’Connor on probation for six months and ordered him to take courses in recordkeeping and the treatment of hypogonadism, a condition in which the body does not produce enough testosterone.

While admitting no wrongdoing, Staw, Abeles and O’Connor did not contest the allegations against them.

The board also restricted the medical license of Dr. Brian McCarthy, an orthopedic surgeon from Torrington, so that he can only engage in the non-clinical practice of medicine or conduct medical research. State records show that he has been diagnosed with an orthopedic condition that may affect his ability to practice medicine and surgery.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Marjorie A. Smith of San Francisco to match a reprimand imposed on her in 2016 by California officials. Officials in that state found that between 2011 and 2013, she failed to adequately document medical services provided to a patient. State law allows the Connecticut board to discipline doctors who have licenses in Connecticut when they have been disciplined in other states.

The board Tuesday also took a rare political stance when it approved a resolution saying it opposed the transfer of $5 from each medical license fee to the state’s general fund rather than having it go to HAVEN, a confidential program that is an alternative to public disciplinary action for health-care professionals who suffer from chemical dependency, emotional or behavioral disorders or physical or mental illness.

In an emotional report to the board, Maureen Sullivan Dinnan, HAVEN’s executive director, said her agency needs the money to properly serve a growing caseload of doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals who need assistance.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy included the transfer of the funds to the general fund in his proposed budget, board members said.

A son and mother who practice medicine in West Hartford were fined a total of $11,500 today by the state Medical Examining Board for prescribing high doses of opioids for patients without monitoring them for drug abuse.

The board fined Dr. Corey Jaquez of the West Hartford Medical Center $7,500 and placed his medical license on probation for a year. They also fined his mother, Janis Jaquez, a physician assistant at the center, $4,000 and placed her license on probation for a year.

Both were ordered to take courses in prescribing drugs and managing chronic pain, which they have already completed, and will have their practice monitored by the state Department of Public Health (DPH) during the probation, under consent orders they agreed to with the board.

DPH records show the charges grew out of a report in 2015 from the state Department of Consumer Protection’s Drug Control Division about the care of three patients between 2010 and 2014. Corey Jaquez failed to adequately supervise his mother and she practiced without appropriate supervision.

DPH staff attorney David Tilles told the board that Corey Jaquez is not restricted from supervising Janis Jaquez. In signing the consent orders, the Jaquezes chose not to contest the allegations.

Though state records did not describe their relationship, their lawyer, John Q. Gale of Hartford, said before the meeting that they are mother and son. He pointed out that during the probation, Janis Jaquez will have to hire an outside physician to monitor her practice, review her records and make periodic reports to DPH.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Ann Tran, a radiologist from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, who was disciplined in Wisconsin in 2016 for failing to appropriately interpret three scans in 2009 in which a “destructive mass” was visible, a consent order Tran signed said.

She has also been disciplined in Maryland, Illinois and Texas, DPH records show. State law in Connecticut allows the board to discipline doctors who have been disciplined in other states if they have a Connecticut medical license.

Though he approved the discipline, Dr. Robert Green, a board member, indicated that Tran was only reprimanded and had to pay $690 in state costs in Wisconsin even though her actions resulted in the death of one of the three patients.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday disciplined five doctors, including fining a Danbury obstetrician $5,000 for her lapses in care in connection with a baby girl’s death during delivery at Greenwich Hospital in June 2015.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Marjan Hedayatzadeh and found that she failed to make an adequate assessment of the baby’s well-being and failed to order an ultrasound of the baby and her twin brother, a consent order that Hedayatzadeh agreed to with the board said.

The order also said that Hedayatzadeh failed to accurately monitor the baby girl’s heart rate during three hours of labor and delivery, the consent order said. In signing the order, Hedayatzadeh did not contest the allegations or admit wrongdoing, the order said. The doctor has completed courses in fetal heart monitoring in the case of twin pregnancies and is now working under a protocol that requires an ultrasound in the case of all labor and deliveries, the order said.

In a letter to the state Department of Public Health, the mother of the baby objected to the penalties, saying they were “insufficient when compared to the harm she caused.” The mother’s name is redacted in the copy of the letter that was made public, but in an announcement of a lawsuit filed against Greenwich Hospital in January, her law firm identified her Lauren E. Sorgen.

The law firm, Silver Golub & Teitell, said that in hopes of preventing future infant fatalities at Greenwich Hospital, Sorgen and her husband, Grant D. Gulyassy, filed the wrongful death lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital and Hedayatzadeh failed to monitor the heartbeat and failed to deliver the girl, Myriam Grace Gulyassy, by emergency Caesarean section. The boy was safely delivered.

The suit claims that the hospital failed to institute proper procedures for the delivery of twins and that led to Myriam’s death of oxygen deprivation.

When the lawsuit was filed, the hospital told the Greenwich Time newspaper that it has instituted additional measures related to high-risk pregnancies.

David Tilles, a DPH staff attorney, told the board that the penalty was appropriate.

“This is obviously a tragic case, but we believe this is a remedy that protects the public going forward,’’ he said, adding that Hedayatzadeh is receiving more extensive supervision in her new practice.

Kathryn Emmett, chairwoman of the medical board, is married to David S. Golub, a partner in the Stamford firm. She recused herself from considering the disciplinary action against Hedayatzadeh.

On Tuesday, the board also disciplined four other doctors. It reprimanded Dr. Stephen Zebrowski of Plainville and placed his medical license on probation for a year for failing to meet the standard care in prescribing and monitoring controlled substances for a patient from 2009 to 2015, a consent order Zebrowski signed said. The patient had chronic pain and a history of substance abuse, the order said.

Zebrowski, who is retired from private practice but works in administration for ProHealth Physicians, did not to contest the allegations, which grew out of a complaint from a person who was fired from Zebrowski’s practice, the consent order said.

During the probation, Zebrowski’s employer must send monthly reports to the state and if he returns to providing direct patient care, he will have to hire a doctor to monitor his practice, the order said. If Zebrowski leaves ProHealth, he will be placed on an additional year’s probation for additional monitoring, DPH Principal Attorney Matthew Antonetti told the board.

Zebrowski’s prescribing practices have been called into question before. In a case that appears unrelated to the case before the medical board, an expert doctor found for the state Workers’ Compensation Commission that Zebrowski had over-prescribed Fentanyl for a patient’s back pain, a 2015 commission report said. The doctor found that Zebrowski’s over-prescribing of Fentanyl patches for the patient, Joseph P. Micale, likely contributed to Micale’s death from a Fentanyl overdose in 2012, the report said.

In 2011, an analysis of drug company records by C-HIT.org found that Zebrowski was the highest prescriber of Oxycontin in Connecticut, dispensing 511 prescriptions – or 200 more than the next highest prescriber.

He also was the second-highest prescriber of Roxicodone, the eighth-highest for Xanax and the fifth-highest for Duragesic, the brand name for the Fentanyl patch. Oxycontin, Roxicodone and Duragesic are narcotic painkillers considered highly addictive and prone to abuse; Xanax is used to treat anxiety.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Donald Berman of Stamford, who is now practicing in Indiana, in connection with a Washington state disciplinary action against him. Washington officials found that in 2014, while working at a hospital in their state, two female patients complained that Berman examined their breasts without their consent, Connecticut state records show. Washington officials found that the exams were not medically warranted, a consent order that Berman signed with Connecticut officials said. Berman chose not to contest the reprimand.

State law allows the Connecticut medical board to discipline doctors with medical licenses in Connecticut if they have been disciplined in other states.

On Tuesday, the board also reprimanded Dr. James Kessler, a radiologist from Roslyn, New York, in connection with findings by New York officials that in 2014, he committed professional misconduct by improperly accessing confidential patient information, records show.

New York officials fined him $10,000 and Pennsylvania officials fined him $5,000 in connection with the incident, records from those states show. Connecticut officials did not fine him, and he did not contest the allegations in a consent order with Connecticut officials.

The board also reprimanded Dr. Ernest Mar of Lakeside, Arizona in connection with disciplinary action taken in Arizona. A consent order Mar signed with the Connecticut board shows that in 2016, Arizona officials reprimanded him and placed his license on probation for two years for failing to properly treat a patient.

Mar failed to disclose that disciplinary action to Connecticut officials in 2016, the order said. In June of this year, Arizona officials also placed his license on probation for one year for improperly treating two patients, the order said.

The state Medical Examining Board on Tuesday disciplined three doctors, including fining a Newtown psychiatrist $15,000 for submitting false insurance claims.

In 2016, the doctor, Naimetulla Syed, paid $422,641 to resolve allegations that he submitted false claims to Medicare and Medicaid between 2009 and 2013, state and federal officials said in a news release at the time.

An investigation revealed that he used a code for psychotherapy sessions lasting 45 to 50 minutes when in most cases, he only saw the patients for five to 30 minutes, the release said.

The medical board also placed Syed’s medical license on probation for a year in connection with the false claims. Syed, who also has an office in Glastonbury, must complete courses in medical documentation.

The state Department of Social Services had audited 100 of Syed’s patient charts and found that each chart lacked a treatment plan, according to a consent order cover sheet. Of those, 65 charts lacked basic patient demographic information and Syed’s signature. Numerous visits were submitted for medication management for patients for whom Syed did not prescribe medications, the cover sheet said. Some billings were for doctor visits that never occurred, it said.

In 2013, Syed had been fined $5,000 by the board for similar allegations that he billed insurance in 2010 for patient visits that never occurred, state records show.

The board also fined an Ansonia doctor $5,000 for prescribing excessive doses of opioids without documenting the need for the drugs.

The board also permanently restricted Dr. Joel Zaretsky from prescribing controlled substances for more than 15 days, except in acute cases. It placed his license on probation for 18 months. During the probation, he must hire a doctor to randomly review his patient medical records and he must take courses in diagnosing and managing back pain, erectile dysfunction and Type 2 diabetes, according to a consent order Zaretsky agreed to. In signing the order, Zaretsky chose not to contest the allegations but admitted no wrongdoing.

Besides prescribing the opioids to excess in 2016, Zaretsky continued to prescribe opioids to a patient who he knew was enrolled in a methadone addiction treatment program, the consent order said. State records show he also deviated from the standard of care in assessing and managing back pain, Type 2 diabetes and erectile dysfunction in patients.

The board revoked the Connecticut license of Dr. Mohan Kaza of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, who, records show, was convicted of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated in 2014 in Michigan. The board also found that in 2014, Kaza failed to report that felony conviction when renewing his Connecticut license, the board’s memorandum of decision said.

Kaza also used alcohol to excess in 2013 and 2016 in Michigan, which it found affects his practice as a physician, the memo said. Kaza was also disciplined by Michigan officials.

The state Medical Examining Board Tuesday placed a Yale Cancer Center doctor’s license on probation for five years, saying his excessive abuse of alcohol affects his ability to practice as a physician.

The board accepted a consent order that said Dr. Harris E. Foster Jr. abused alcohol to excess at various times between 2012 and May of this year. Last week, the cancer center’s website listed Foster as a professor of urology at the Yale School of Medicine and as the director of female urology and neuro-urology at the center in New Haven. After a reporter inquired about his status, the cancer center’s website on Tuesday only listed him as a urology professor.

Mark D’Antonio, a spokesman for Yale New Haven Hospital, said Tuesday that Foster is still affiliated with the cancer center, but he cannot comment further because Yale does not comment on personnel matters.

In signing the consent order, Foster admitted no guilt or wrongdoing but chose not to contest the matter. During the probation, Foster must attend therapy and support group sessions and pass random drug and alcohol tests, the order said. He is also barred from conducting medicine in a solo practice for five years.

The board also approved two cease and desist orders for two women that the state Department of Public Health (DPH) said have been practicing medicine without a license.

In the first case, Zaadia Arzu of Stratford agreed to a consent order that said from November 2017 to March, she administered vaccinations, inserted intravenous catheters and administered medication to one or more patients without a medical license. She also used the initials “M.D.” on her business card and a business sign during the same time period, the consent order.

Under the order, Arzu agreed to stop practicing medicine without a license. DPH received a complaint about Arzu in March from a former patient of a medical practice in Stratford, records show.

The board also ordered Lauren Stone of Wilton to stop practicing homeopathy without a license. That branch of medicine embraces a holistic, natural approach to the treatment of the sick.

DPH began an investigation of Stone’s practice in 2016 based on an anonymous complaint. A consent order she agreed to said she treated six patients for a variety of ailments, including joint pain, liver dysfunction, autism, Lyme disease, infections, liver and kidney inflammation, anxiety and “stabbing stomach pain” with plant extracts as antimicrobials, non-prescription substances and colloidal silver. The FDA has taken action against some manufacturers of colloidal silver products for making unproven health claims.

While admitting none of the allegations, Stone chose not to contest the matter and agreed to stop practicing medicine without a license, the consent order said.

Mariella LaRosa, Stone’s Waterbury attorney, said that Stone has a master’s degree in nutrition sciences and believed she was practicing appropriately in that field while her patients continued to be under the care of physicians.

But board member Dr. Daniel Rissi said, “She was making diagnoses and that clearly is the practice of medicine.”

The board also dropped the charges against a Weston psychiatrist who had been accused of letting his secretary sign prescriptions for controlled substances for herself and for patients he had not examined. The action came because Dr. Harry Brown has voluntarily surrendered his medical license, DPH Staff Attorney David Tilles said.

In August, the board rejected a consent order that would have imposed a $25,000 fine against Brown, with some members saying the proposed penalty was too lenient. It would have been the fourth time that Brown had been disciplined by the state board.

The state Medical Examining Board today recommended reinstating the medical license of a former Yale School of Medicine department head who served nine months in prison for lying about his travel expenses while at Johns Hopkins University.

In 2017, Dr. Jean-Francois Geschwind of Westport pleaded guilty to four counts of mail fraud arising from his scheme to unlawfully obtain travel expenses from Johns Hopkins, where he was a radiologist, according to the U.S. attorney in Maryland.

Geschwind fraudulently received reimbursement for trips to the United Kingdom, France and Japan when some of the expenses were for family vacations and meals, the U.S. attorney said. He was ordered to pay fine of $75,000 and an assessment of  $400 and restitution of $583,484, Connecticut and Maryland records show.

A liver cancer researcher, Geschwind wrote to the Connecticut board that in 2015, he was recruited by Yale to become its new chair of the radiology department. He voluntarily surrendered his Connecticut license after his arrest in 2017, but wrote that he wants to once again treat cancer patients in Connecticut.

The board Tuesday recommended reprimanding him and placing his license on probation for a year and recommended that the state Department of Public Health require him to take a course in ethics.

The board also reprimanded and fined a Glastonbury doctor $7,500 and permanently restricted him from performing surgery, including giving cosmetic injections, under a consent order he agreed to.

In 2015, Dr. Bruce Burnham failed to appropriately treat a patient’s anxiety and panic disorder and inappropriately prescribed an anti-anxiety drug for the patient, the order said. From 2016 to 2017, he failed to obtain informed consent for procedures on six patients and failed to maintain adequate treatment records, the order said.

During an inspection in 2017, state officials also found improper infection controls in his office, saying he failed to properly sterilize instruments, properly maintain equipment and properly store controlled substances, the order said. Burnham also used expired solutions and medications, the order said.

Burnham, who was ordered to hire a physician to monitor his practice, paid the fine but admitted no wrongdoing.

The board reprimanded and fined a Bridgeport doctor $3,500 after an investigation found there were lapses in his care for a patient who developed liver cancer and died before the investigation was finished, state records show. The patient had complained to the state about Dr. Anton Chinniah’s treatment of her Hepatitis C, state records show.

A consent order that Chinniah agreed to says that between 2010 and 2014, he failed to properly treat the patient’s Hepatitis C and liver disease, failed to properly refer the patient to specialists and failed to maintain adequate treatment records.

Chinniah has already paid the fine and completed courses in the care of Hepatitis C patients, state records show. By signing the consent order, Chinniah admitted no wrongdoing but chose not to contest the allegations.

The board also suspended the license of Dr. Nami Bayan of Shelton, saying his practice of medicine poses a danger to the public, state records show. The statement of charges against Bayan said that in 2018, he suffered an emotional disorder or mental illness that affects his ability to safely practice medicine.

The board also fined three doctors at Connecticut Addiction Medicine in Rocky Hill $1,000 each for improperly delegating the injection of a drug that helps reduce relapses in drug or alcohol abuse to unlicensed medical assistants, state records show. Patients were injected by the assistants in 2015 and 2016.

While admitting no wrongdoing, Dr. Edith Hergan of Rocky Hill, Dr. Jay Benson of Avon and Dr. Mahboob Aslam of Rocky Hill, chose not to contest the allegations, according to consent orders each of them signed.

This story originally reported that Dr. Jean-Francois Gerschwind served a year and a day in prison. He served nine months. The story also incorrectly reported that he paid a $475,000 fine. The fine was $75,000 with a $400 assessment.

The state Medical Examining Board fined a Greenwich doctor $3,000 on Tuesday for failing to justify prescribing high doses of opioids for patients in 2015 and 2016.

The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Francis X. Walsh, placed his license on probation for six months and ordered him to take courses in medical documentation and controlled substance prescribing, a consent order he agreed to said.

In prescribing the drugs in his office practice, Walsh failed to properly document that he had examined the patients and failed to justify “potentially dangerous dosing and combinations of medications,” the order said.

During the probation, Walsh must hire a doctor to review his office practice. Walsh has surrendered his state registration to prescribe controlled substances in that practice, state records show.

He can still prescribe drugs at the Nathaniel Witherell nursing home in Greenwich, where he is the medical director, records show. In signing the consent order, Walsh chose not to contest the allegations against him.

Board members Jean Rexford and Michele Jacklin voted against the consent order, saying the fine was not high enough given the serious nature of the allegations.

“At what point do we take a bigger action” against the over-prescribing of opioids, Rexford said. “This is unacceptable.”

David Tilles, a staff attorney for the state Department of Public Health, responded that the department believes the penalty is sufficient because Walsh has made substantial improvements in his prescribing practices and because he is only prescribing controlled substances now at the nursing home, where there is oversight.

Dr. Andrew Yuan, a board member, agreed with Tilles.  “I think the public is protected,’’ he said.

The board also ordered David Landi of Bristol to cease the practice of medicine without a license after DPH alleged that in April 2016, he administered a penile injection to a patient to treat erectile dysfunction, records show. Landi administered the drug at a men’s health clinic in Cromwell, records show.

Landi was the owner and operator of the clinic, which has since closed, Tilles said. Landi showed a physician who was affiliated with the clinic how to inject the medication, but the doctor cut all ties with the clinic after one day or so, Tilles told the board.

Landi agreed in a consent order with the board to stop practicing medicine without a license.

A Norwich doctor was disciplined by the state Medical Examining Board for failing to appropriately manage the care of patients with pain, diabetes and a seizure disorder.

It’s the third time that Dr. Helar Campos, who also has an office in New London, has been disciplined by the board.

Campos was reprimanded and fined $8,000 and had his medical license placed on probation for six months under a consent order he agreed to. During the probation, he must hire a physician to monitor a portion of his patients’ records.

In 2012, Campos was fined $7,000 for the illegal delegation of nursing care to unlicensed staff, state Department of Public Health records show. In 2014, he was fined $5,000 and his license was placed on probation for a year after he delegated the monitoring of his diabetes patients’ use of insulin pumps to unlicensed employees who worked for the pump manufacturer, records show.

The latest consent order says that between 2010 and 2014, he failed to document the reasons for prescribing controlled substances and failed to refer patients to a pain specialist and a diabetes specialist. In 2015, he failed to adequately follow-up when a patient with a seizure disorder had elevated levels of the anti-seizure drug Dilantin, the order said. Campos maintains that he met the standard of care for that patient but the patient did not follow his instructions, DPH records show.

Campos has completed courses in medical documentation and the management of pain and diabetes. In agreeing to the consent order, he chose not to contest the allegations against him but admitted no wrongdoing.

Dr. C. Steven Wolf, a member of the medical board, said he was concerned that Campos has had a pattern of being disciplined by the board.

Campos’ lawyer, Aggie Cahill of Hartford, defended him, saying he has been honored in Norwich for providing quality care to a poor, underserved population of patients.

“There is no reason to be concerned about this physician,’’ she said.

Wolf joined the board in unanimously approving the disciplinary action against Campos, with board member Dr. Daniel Rissi abstaining.

The board also reprimanded and fined Dr. Judith Major of Shelton $7,500 for changing a patient’s chart after DPH officials notified her that the patient had filed a complaint with them.

When certifying the patient, a retired police officer, for a medical marijuana prescription, Major stated an incorrect diagnosis, a spinal cord injury, and omitted the correct diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, records show. She then altered some of the patient’s records by adding the correct diagnosis after the fact, records show. While the patient complained that Major had knowingly misstated the original diagnosis, DPH officials were unable to substantiate that the errors were deliberate.

Major’s medical license was also placed on probation for six months, during which she must take a course in medical documentation and hire a doctor to review her medical marijuana certification patients. In signing the consent order, Major chose not to contest the allegations.

The board also reprimanded a Watertown doctor and banned him from providing clinical care or prescribing medication to patients for having prescribed excessive doses of controlled substances for patients between 2013 and 2016. A consent order agreed to by Dr. Jeffrey Stern said he also failed to examine patients to justify a prescription, allowed one patient to call in her own prescriptions to a pharmacy and failed to keep any records for some patients during those same years.

The ban took effect Jan. 31, the same day he closed his practice, the order said. Stern, who chose not to contest the allegations against him, had already voluntarily surrendered his registration to prescribe controlled substances with the state Department of Consumer Protection in 2016.

David Tilles, a DPH staff attorney, told the board that Stern has moved to Florida to work full-time on the faculty of the University of Florida.

Dr. Pacifico Flores Jr. of Bristol was reprimanded for failing to take continuing medical education courses between 2015 and 2017, a consent order he agree to said. The order also said that Flores falsely stated on his 2017 license renewal form in 2017 that he had taken the courses.

Flores did not contest the allegations. His license was placed on probation for one year or until he takes all of the required courses, the order said.