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Witness [Dr. Frank Fisher] Defends Pain Clinics: Says Dispensing of Pills Appropriate
 

 
Susan Finch; The Times-Picayune (New Orleans); 2006-07-15. Posted: 2006-07-22.
[Identifier: http://www.doctordeluca.com/Library/WOD/WPS13-NoPillMill/NoPillMillFisherDefends06.htm]
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PAIN RELIEF NETWORK website
 
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See also:
The New Orleans 'Pill Mill' Case - Venal Pols and Prosecutors Conspire to Ban Pain Management
WAR ON PAIN SUFFERERS collection #13; compiled by Alexander DeLuca; 2006-07-15
 
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Harvard-trained Dr. Frank B. Fisher took the stand in U.S. District Court, testifying as an expert in pain management, to help defend Scherer clinics owner Cherlyn "Cookie" Armstrong and Dr. Suzette Cullins, a staff physician for the clinics.

Both women are accused of conspiring to distribute narcotics without a legitimate medical purpose. Armstrong, a registered nurse, also stands accused of money laundering in a jury trial now in its third week.

Attorneys for the two women say the clinics in Gretna, Metairie and Slidell, raided and shut down in April 2005, provided valuable medical service to thousands of patients living with pain.

Fisher has had his own battles with authorities who apparently don't agree with him that chronic pain is a disease often relieved by high doses of "opioids," medicines that resemble what the body uses to control pain. In 1999, his Northern California pain clinic was shuttered, and he was charged with being part of a drug dealing conspiracy that left at least three people dead of overdoses, addicted many others and cheated the state insurance program of about $2 million. By 2004, he had beaten all the charges. These days, Fisher is a consultant working with patients as well as physicians and organizations devoted to chronic pain treatment.

Under questioning by Armstrong's attorney, Michael Fawer, Fisher tried to deflect government claims that the Scherer clinics were mills where hundreds of patients a day were handed pre-printed prescriptions for painkillers, muscle relaxants and anxiety drugs after briefly seeing a doctor, some for less than a minute.

Fisher said the amount of time spent with the patient is not a measure of the quantity or quality of care if the doctor is simply monitoring a returning patient's use of pain medications.

Clinic records show that before patients saw a doctor, they were questioned about the nature, location and intensity of their pain and how long it lasts, Fisher said. "It appears to me the physicians at the clinics were getting the kind of information they are supposed to gather to make a diagnosis of chronic pain," he testified.

Fisher added that he found evidence in the files of good medical practices, such as referring patients to outside specialists to confirm diagnoses or to treat conditions such as high blood pressure.

He also lauded the pain management chain's move to bar one patient from treatment for three months after he was caught getting prescriptions from more than one of the clinics. Earlier in the trial, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who posed as a patient at the Slidell clinic last year testified that the investigation turned up evidence of suspected "clinic-hopping."

Susan Finch can be reached at sfinch@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3340.

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