Pubdate: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX) Copyright: 2005 Austin American-Statesman Contact: http://www.statesman.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/32 Author: Mary Ann Roser, Staff Writer AUSTIN DOCTOR, PREVIOUSLY DISCIPLINED, CAUSED PATIENT'S DEATH, SUIT SAYS Lawsuit Accuses Doctor Of Prescribing Fatal Cocktail Of Drugs And Using Patient's Prescriptions For Himself The parents of a woman who died two years ago while in the care of an Austin doctor who later gave up his medical license are suing him and the alternative health clinic where he practiced. A lawsuit filed last week in state district court in Travis County names Lewis Zingery, 53, and Nature's Healthcare & Medical in Austin. It also seeks payment from an unnamed pharmacist and pharmacy that dispensed medications that the suit says led to the death of 29-year-old Keri Atkins in October 2003. The lawsuit says Zingery prescribed a "cocktail" of drugs for Atkins that proved to be fatal. It also says Zingery used Atkins to obtain narcotics for his own use. But the suit does not give details about how Atkins died, and a lawyer for her parents declined to elaborate. Zingery, who last had a Leander address, could not be reached Monday. A spokeswoman for Nature's Healthcare said it was not involved in the suit because it is no longer the same company with which Zingery worked. Zingery delivered a baby with forceps at Darnall Army Community Hospital at Fort Hood in 1995 who was severely brain damaged, leading to a $32.7 million verdict against the federal government, which owns the hospital. Zingery was not named in that suit. In 1996, the Texas Medical Board put Zingery on probation for five years based on allegations of alcohol abuse, substance abuse and improper prescribing. The board said Zingery denied the alcohol and substance abuse but admitted that he wrote prescriptions without following proper procedures. The board later said he could not deliver babies or practice obstetrics without its permission. Zingery instead started an alternative medicine practice at Nature's Healthcare in 2000, medical board documents say. The lawsuit, filed by Janis and Robert Atkins of Bryan, said their daughter went to Zingery for pain after twice injuring her neck and back in 2002. The suit claims that Zingery prescribed "an increasingly potent and addictive cocktail of narcotics in exchange for her filling additional prescriptions made out in her own name on Dr. Zingery's behalf and for his own recreational use. . . . Unfortunately for Keri Atkins, the prescriptions provided by Dr. Zingery, when taken in combination, are fatal." Zingery did not warn his patient about the drugs, the suit says. The lawsuit does not name the drugs Atkins took. The Atkinses declined to comment and referred questions to their attorney, Gaines West of Bryan. In declining to provide details, he said "new case law" limited what he could say. Keri Atkins' body was found Oct. 20, 2003. An autopsy performed by the Travis County medical examiner's office Nov. 3, 2003, said Atkins was found dead and alone in her apartment several days after friends last saw her alive. The death was apparently an accident, the report said, a result of "mixed drug toxicity." The toxicology report on Atkins showed a mixture of ethanol (alcohol), carisoprodol (muscle relaxant), meprobamate (anti-anxiety agent), methadone (narcotic), promethazine (antihistamine) and trace amounts of diazepam (anti-anxiety agent), nordiazepam (related to diazepam) and hydrocodone (narcotic pain killer). The suit says Nature's Healthcare should have ensured that Zingery was competent when it hired him. Joy Blaney, business operations manager at Nature's Healthcare, said the clinic that Zingery operated was his own practice and that it closed when he left, more than a year ago. Nature's Healthcare, which has two locations where Zingery practiced, now operates a chiropractic clinic, but "we don't employ medical doctors," she said. "As far as I know, the suit doesn't concern us. . . . We haven't been served or anything." After Atkins' death, Zingery was disciplined again by the medical board, in February 2004. The board said his treatment of 32 patients at Nature's Healthcare was "below the standard of care." The board order did not mention any patient deaths but cited such problems as prescribing opiates to patients before examining them; prescribing psychiatric drugs without an evaluation or without proper monitoring by a mental health provider; and excessive prescribing and dose escalation of combinations of potentially addictive and central nervous system-altering medications. At that time, Zingery, a 1979 graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio, gave up his medical license. - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman