State health officials have immediately restricted the license of a Vancouver physician and surgeon.
The state health department’s Medical Quality Assurance Commission restricted the license of Dr. Bruce Andison on Monday. The commission’s charging documents accuse Andison of providing substandard care to his immediate family members between 1999 and May 2014.
Andison is prohibited from treating or prescribing to members of his immediate family until the charges are resolved. He has 20 days to respond to the charges and request a hearing. Andison has had a Washington physician and surgeon license since August 1983.
Andison’s long-term and ongoing care of immediate family members is contrary to the medical commission’s written policies, modeled after the American Medical Association’s code of ethics, according to the charging documents. The commission’s policy states that a practitioner should not serve as a primary or regular care provider and strongly discourages prescribing controlled substances to family members.
“This dual relationship is fraught with boundary issues, including treatment of problems beyond the practitioner’s expertise, compromised professional objectivity, violations to patient rights and informed consent,” the commission wrote in the charging documents. “(Andison’s) treatment of family members is a textbook case of such boundary issues. (Andison) has blatantly disregarded the written commission policy.”
Andison did not return a message left for him at the Vancouver clinic where he works in obstetrics and gynecology.
Substandard care
According to the charging documents, Andison has been prescribing medications, including controlled substances, to family members with insufficient diagnosis, treatment plans, charting and monitoring since at least 1999. Potentially addictive controlled substances have been prescribed for years to patients with a history of substance abuse, with insufficient monitoring of medication efficacy or abuse, according to the documents.
The documents allege Andison treated problems beyond his expertise, including mental health, substance abuse and chronic pain issues without referring the family members to the appropriate health care practitioners.
The two family members Andison treated are identified in the charging documents as Patient A and Patient B.
In July 2011, while under Andison’s care, Patient A was hospitalized after being shot in the face by a police officer following a suicide attempt, according to the documents. During the patient’s hospitalization, hospital physicians expressed concern that Andison was interfering with the patient receiving the appropriate psychiatric evaluation and treatment, according to the documents.
Since at least May 2014, Andison continued to treat the patient for serious health conditions, prescribing medications for inadequately diagnosed health conditions, according to the documents.
“For an extended period of time, (Andison) has continued to treat immediate family members, despite negative outcomes to the patients,” according to the documents.
Andison and his wife, Mary Lee Andison, filed a $10 million claim against Vancouver and Clark County in 2013 after Mary Lee Andison was shot in the face. The shooting occurred after Clark County sheriff’s deputies and Vancouver police officers responded to a call to check on a suicidal woman.
That claim has since evolved into a federal lawsuit. The trial is scheduled to begin in January 2016.
