Story about some online medical students legal problems

Lexington Herald Leader (Kentucky)

March 6, 2004 Saturday

HEADLINE: Suit accuses man of posing as physician;
MEDICAL STUDENT WORKED AT LEXINGTON CHIROPRACTIC CLINIC
By Andy Olsen; HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER


More than a dozen patients of a Lexington chiropractic clinic have complained to Fayette County Attorney Margaret Kannensohn that they had been treated by a medical student allegedly posing as a doctor.

Larry M. Lammers, 54, was arrested Monday in Michigan and charged with three counts of practicing medicine without a license. Late Thursday, Lexington police issued a warrant for his arrest after Sandra Kidd, a patient at the Accident Injury Medical Center on Southland Drive, told Kannensohn that Lammers had treated her and administered injections without the licensing required by the state of Kentucky.

Yesterday, the county attorney's office was swamped with calls from patients who said Lammers had treated them.

"I've been tied up all day with this," Kannensohn said. "These people are concerned."

Kidd filed charges against Lammers Thursday. Kannensohn said she was encouraging other patients to do the same. "My hope is that we'll have a police investigation," she said.

Lammers, a medical student at St. Luke School of Medicine of West Africa, worked at Accident Injury from March to August of last year. He had previously been a licensed chiropractor in Florida, said Greg Mack, CEO of Florida-based Injury Rehab Centers, which owns the Southland clinic. "He presented himself as a doctor because, in his mind, he still was a doctor," Mack said.

Lammers was always open with patients about his status as a medical student, Mack said, though he might have confused them by identifying himself as a doctor.

"He was very opinionated in his beliefs," Mack said. "Can he still be called a doctor? Well, obviously he thinks he can."

Lammers was the CEO of Vision MRI, an Orlando-based diagnostic company. He sold the company to Miracor Diagnostics Inc. of San Diego in 1998, according to SEC filings.

Mack said Lammers gave up his license when he sold the company to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Lammers received one year's probation in November after admitting to practicing medicine without a license in Pulaski County.

Both Lammers and Mack were listed as defendants in a $1 million lawsuit filed in June by Allstate Insurance Company and Liberty Mutual Group. The lawsuit claims Lammers and the clinic overcharged patients and billed them for services not rendered.

Warren Scoville, Lammers' lawyer, wrote to Pulaski County Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Ousley that Lammers would testify in court that Accident Injury "would pocket overpayments from insurance companies," that customers were billed for MRIs that were never performed and that the center's staff was instructed to "get $10,000 out of each patient or exhaust the PIP (personal injury protection in auto insurance), whichever was greater."

Another student from the St. Luke School of Medicine, where Lammers was taking online courses, was indicted in Nevada in October for practicing without a license. At the time, Andrew Michael was observing at Central Baptist Hospital, but he did not practice on any patients there.

The indictment led the hospital to tighten its procedures for allowing medical students to observe there. Jerroll Dolphin, president of St. Luke's California office, did not return phone calls yesterday from the Herald-Leader.