The Medical Board of California Executive Director Kimberly Kirchmeyer is seeking license revocation hearings for a Huntington Beach family physician who allegedly failed to recognize a patient’s fatal heart condition and a chief doctor who was sent to prison for distributing drugs without medical necessity from his Fountain Valley clinic that was later tied to four overdose deaths.
A 49-year-old man complaining of chest pressure saw Mah-McCaa on June 21, 2012, when the doctor conducted a physical and EKG, found everything to be normal, blamed the chest pressure on gastoesophageal reflux (GERD) and recommended lifestyle changes, according to state documents.
Five days later, the patient was taken in full cardiac arrest to a hospital, where he died.
Mah-McCaa’s failure to recognize and treat the acute coronary event the patient was experiencing constitutes gross negligence and general unprofessional conduct, according to Kirchmeyer’s accusation.
Click here for the accusation filed Nov. 30 against the license of Dr. Victor Boon Huat Siew, who the medical board previously disciplined Feb. 18, 1998, for aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine.
His latest troubles stem from pleading guilty June 1 in federal court to one count of unlawful distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance (the painkiller oxycodone) and one of a Schedule IV (the sedative alprazolam). He was sentenced Sept. 11 to 70 and 60 months in federal prison, to be served concurrently, and was ordered to pay a $1 million fine and, after imprisonment, spend three years on supervised release. He is also prohibited from applying for any job that requires local, state or federal licensing or certification without the written approval of his probation officer.
Siew, who ran the Fountain Valley clinic, had been indicted with another doctor and a physician assistant in federal court on June 8, 2016, for alleged conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, 32 counts of distribution of a Schedule II controlled substance, 22 counts of distribution of a Schedule IV controlled substance and aiding and abetting one another.
From January 2009 through February 2015, Siew “knowingly and intentionally distributed controlled substances outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose” from his Fountain Valley office, according to the indictment.
These included 2,190 oxycodone tablets with a marijuana equivalent of 528.63 kilograms, 1,860 methadone tablets with a marijuana equivalent of 9.3 kilograms and 1,540 alprazolam tablets with a marijuana equivalent of 0.096 kilograms, alleged the feds, who added that on Feb. 14, 2012, alone, he gave someone identified as M.S. a prescription of 180 oxycodone pills, 240 methadone pills and 90 alprazolam pills.
Prosecutors tied four overdose deaths to the Fountain Valley clinic.
Besides the reasons stated above, Siew is subject to board discipline for violating a federal statute or regulation regarding controlled substances, the same in relation to dangerous drugs, furnishing drugs without a medical necessity and general unprofessional conduct, Kirchmeyer charges.
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