Two Orange County physicians recently got slapped by the Medical Board of California, while a registered nurse is accused of illegally injecting Botox at a day spa.
The Medical Board restricted the license of Dr. Mark Anthony A. Wimbley of Irvine for repeatedly prescribing dangerous drugs and medications to patients without having examined them and violating state laws that address excessive prescribing.
“There is a reasonable probability” Wimbley’s license will be “permanently” disciplined for gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, prescribing drugs without an appropriate prior examination, violating state laws concerning dangerous drugs and controlled substances and excessive prescribing,” states Kimberly Kirchmeyer, executive director of the Medical Board of California, in an affidavit agreed to and signed by Wimbley, who has worked in family medicine and drug detox offices in Newport Beach.
Between March 26, 2013, and Aug. 28, 2014, Wimbley “deviated from the standard of care on multiple occasions, often in an extreme manner, by prescribing controlled substances to 23 patients, including three confidential sources and one undercover investigator,” Kirchmeyer states. “In brief, respondent repeatedly failed to obtain pertinent medical history and/or to conduct a physical examination. Medical justification for the prescribed medications was typically lacking. Appropriate dosages were often exceeded.”
She goes on to note the Orange County District Attorney’s office issued a felony warrant accusing Wimbley of violating 12 counts of state Health and Safety Code regulations from March 26-Sept. 25, 2013. This past August, Wimbley and the OCDA agreed he will not prescribe any Schedule II, III and IV controlled medications.
The Medical Board order, effective Oct. 31, reinforces that prohibition, dictates that another physician review Wimbley’s patient charts within seven days of him treating a patient and has the physician's watcher alert the board of any prescriptions Wimbley writes for Schedule II, III and IV controlled medications. Wimbley is directed to point patients requiring drugs he is restricted from prescribing to other medical care specialists or alternatives to those medications.
The Medical Board also issued a public reprimand to the license of Dr. Edward Robert Alexson of Santa Ana effective Nov. 4.
“You failed to adequately supervise your chemotherapy infusion center, such that an unlicensed staff member was allowed to, and did, mix and administer chemotherapy drugs to your patients,” reads Kirchmeyer's affidavit.
Multiple chemotherapy patients were treated daily at the outpatient hematology and oncology medical practice Alexson owned and operated at 1100 N. Tustin Ave., Tustin in 2012-2013. State regulations dictate that a qualified physician oversee the room where chemotherapy drugs are mixed, but Alexson admitted to the board that he seldom went in there, leaving his head nurse to oversee the mixing of drugs.
The reprimand expires on July 31, 2017, but before then Alexson must complete a medical ethics course, according to the Medical Board.
Nurse Bridget “Gigi” Goddard owned and operated Pure Indulgence Skin Rejuvenation day spa in Laguna Niguel, where Botox was injected without a licensed physician supervising, as required under federal law, according to spokesman Thom Mrozek of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.
Pure Indulgence was subjected to a Food and Drug Administration sting operation that had an undercover agent pretending to be one of Goddard's patients. An FDA investigation determined the 50-year-old Dana Point resident obtained Botox through online sources in Turkey and Canada over several years, including from Toronto's SB Medical Inc., which pleaded guilty in federal court in Virginia and was ordered to pay a $45 million fine and forfeit $30 million for sending misbranded drugs into the U.S., Mrozek said.
Goddard, who is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Dec. 12, is expected to plead guilty to one count of receipt and delivery of a misbranded drug, Mrozek said.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.