Connecticut medical board fines doctor, physician assistant

A son and mother who practice medicine in West Hartford were fined a total of $11,500 Tuesday 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 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 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.