Pain doctor calls effect 'immense' The quarterly ride to her Chapel Hill doctor takes Karen Nelson more than an hour from her home in Harnett County, and it's rough going all the way because Nelson is in constant pain. Now she has to make the trip monthly, tripling her misery. Under guidelines recently proposed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Nelson and other pain sufferers must be seen every month by their doctors before they can get a 30-day prescription for narcotic pain medications to treat chronic conditions. [continues 861 words]
Rally - National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day For a few minutes Monday morning, traffic at busy intersections in downtown Raleigh stopped dead as 300 people and a marching band trekked down Jones Street toward the Legislative Building to rally against AIDS in the African-American community. The march -- the first statewide event of its kind on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day -- drew activists, church groups, AIDS patients, state health leaders and others. Some of the marchers held up dollar bills and demanded an infusion of $10 million in state funding to battle a disease that is devastating the black community. [continues 362 words]
RALEIGH - In a move that was "one step away" from the worst punishment available, the N.C. Medical Board imposed a minimum one-year suspension against Dr. Joseph Talley for breaching care standards in his treatment of pain patients with high dosages of narcotics. Talley, who turns 65 on Saturday, may effectively be out of business after practicing since 1969 in the small textile mill village of Grover, on the South Carolina line. "When the board brought its charges and published them, they imposed the punishment and carried it out," Talley testified during his sentencing hearing Thursday before the board rendered its judgment. "The damage was done. My career is gone. My financial security is gone. My reputation is gone." [continues 712 words]
RALEIGH - The N.C. Medical Board, after deliberating for two hours in a rare Saturday session, found Dr. Joseph Talley guilty of deviating from acceptable standards of care for his treatment of patients with narcotic pain relievers. The board deferred punishment until its meeting in April. It could revoke Talley's license outright, or suspend him from practicing for some period of time. Talley, 64, has been a cause celebre among pain sufferers and the focus of national media for his prescribing practices as small-town doctor in Grover, a textile mill village west of Charlotte. [continues 1252 words]
RALEIGH - A pain specialist from Wake Forest University's medical school said Friday he had concerns about how Dr. Joseph Talley prescribed narcotic pain relief to patients without first performing physical examinations. Dr. Richard Rauck, a professor of anesthesiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, spent most of the day testifying as an expert witness during a second day of hearings before the N.C. Medical Board. The board has accused Talley of deviating from accepted standards of practice in his treatment of patients, particularly as he prescribed powerful narcotics such as OxyContin, morphine and methadone. After the hearings, board members will decide whether to revoke Talley's license, tender a lesser sanction or clear him. [continues 643 words]
Former Patient Blames Doctor For Husband's Fatal OxyContin Overdose RALEIGH - The list of painkillers and anti-depressants Fayleen Huffstetler received as a patient of Dr. Joseph Talley spans 18 pages in her file and 20 years of her life, but she blames a single prescription for the world of hurt she now endures. That prescription killed her husband, Huffstetler told members of the N.C. Medical Board. "It's sad," she said. "It's just sad." Huffstetler testified Thursday during a hearing in which Talley is defending his right to continue practicing medicine. The medical board accuses him of deviating from acceptable standards of care for the way in which he prescribed powerful narcotics for pain. [continues 643 words]
DEA Has Lifted His Power to Prescribe GROVER - The atmosphere was grim in Dr. Joseph Talley's waiting room last week. Patients sat on scruffy cushioned stacking chairs, the kind common to buffet diners, eager to see Talley for assurance or a referral. None were getting what they really wanted -- a prescription renewal for narcotic pain relievers or other powerful drugs they had come to rely on Talley to write. Talley was pretty low himself. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, in an order suspending his privilege to prescribe narcotics, had called him an "imminent danger to the public health and safety." It accused him of prescribing to known drug addicts and contributing to the deaths of 23 people. Agents told him his small clinic was the largest single source of the painkiller OxyContin in the nation. [continues 2796 words]
Columbus Finds That There's No One-Size-Fits-All Solution To Housing Homeless Mentally Ill COLUMBUS, OHIO - The cinder-block building that has been George Smith's home for nearly three years is actually a converted Chinese restaurant on a busy strip leading out of downtown Columbus. As apartment living goes, it's humble; but for Smith, it is salvation from a decade of homelessness that resulted from untreated mental illness and alcoholism. "This is one of the best programs in the state, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "It really provides for people in a bad situation." And although Smith is under no obligation to seek treatment or even stay sober, he and 12 others have been allowed to live in the converted restaurant since it opened in 1999. No similar program exists in Wake County, where the county's largest housing agency for the mentally ill requires drug and alcohol screening. [continues 1286 words]
