Doctor Disciplined for Overdoses of Chemotherapy
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BOSTON — Massachusetts medical authorities disciplined a doctor who prescribed overdoses of chemotherapy that killed one woman and seriously sickened another, questioning his competence and finding him guilty of malpractice, officials said Monday.
The state’s Board of Registration in Medicine suspended Dr. James Foran for prescribing four times the proper dosage of chemotherapy drugs to the women at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in November 1994.
The overdoses sickened Maureen Bateman, a teacher from North Andover, and killed Betsy A. Lehman, a 39-year-old health columnist for the Boston Globe. Both had breast cancer.
“Dr. Foran engaged in conduct which calls into question his competence to practice medicine, including practicing medicine with negligence on repeated occasions,” the board wrote in a consent order signed by Foran.
Lehman died of a heart attack in December 1994. Bateman’s heart was severely damaged, but she slowly recovered. Later she developed other cancers and died in 1997.
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