The state Medical Board placed a Costa Mesa physician's license on five years probation over the care he gave to weight-loss patients and for being deceitful to an investigator that had asked him about accessing pornography on a hospital computer.
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Dr. Chan Woo Lee is also prohibited from supervising physician assistants, according to the California Medical Board order that went into effect on Jan. 14.
The discipline stems from Lee's treatment of three patients between 2007 through 2010 at Valley Weight Loss Center in Fresno. One was a woman who wanted to get down to 140 pounds from 168 pounds. Without giving her a physical or checking her medical history, which included hypertension and heart palpitations, Lee prescribed her Bontril, an appetite suppressant, Chromium, a metabolism booster, and Vitamin B-12 injections to make her feel better.
Lee saw the patient for more than a year without ever performing any diagnostic evaluations or recommending or charting diet and exercise, according to state documents. The meds were the only treatment, other than later prescribing a thyroid hormone without ever reviewing the woman's thyroid status, and she lost eight pounds over the year, notes the board, whose discipline of Lee involves the failure to maintain adequate records for her.
The physician was also disciplined for the treatment of women ages 55 and 39. In both cases, “Respondent failed to adequately document a medical history, medication usage, substance abuse, history, allergies, caffeine use, previous weight loss methods, daily exercise and dietary intake, any assessment or plan of treatment, and failed to conduct adequate physical examinations and these failures by Respondent individually and collectively constitute an extreme departure from the standard of care,” the board states.
During the complaint investigation process, Lee was deceitful about his physician residency training, according to the medical board. He stated he had performed his residency in three states and was not promoted to third-year resident because he was accused of a security violation. When the examiner asked if it had anything to do with accessing pornography from a hospital computer, Lee denied it, claiming he was allowed to withdraw from the program without it being listed as a termination with the help of an attorney.
But the following day, the investigator received information from the New Mexico Medical Board's probe of Lee that stated he was terminated from his residency program due to accessing porn from a hospital computer and printing it to a public area.
“In addition, the hospital had concerns with Respondent's competency in several skill areas,” the board states.
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