Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 20, 1992 TAG: 9203200262
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ralph Thomas Reach, 32, had been charged with six felony drug-trafficking violations, but prosecutors agreed to drop those charges in exchange for his guilty plea to a misdemeanor.
Judge James Turk also ordered Reach, who has been placed on indefinite probation by the state Board of Medicine, to perform 250 hours of community service. Reach faced up to six months in jail for pleading guilty to the misdemeanor.
Reach, who works in Southwest Virginia as a contract emergency room physician, testified Thursday that he is a recovering addict and has not used alcohol or drugs since August 1988. More than 175 drug and alcohol screening tests he has taken since that date have been negative, he said.
Reach said he sought treatment for his addiction voluntarily after his wife left him temporarily and he "hit bottom." He was not indicted on federal drug charges until last summer - three years after he stopped abusing drugs.
"The devastating effect that this case has had on my finances and career is not the true tragedy, but rather it is the fact that many impaired health professionals will not seek treatment for their disease for fear of being criminally prosecuted," Reach said in a prepared statement.
In a summary of the evidence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Eckert said Reach wrote an illegal prescription on Jan. 13, 1988, for Paula Radford, a registered nurse who visited him at his Communicare office on Peters Creek Road in Roanoke.
Reach gave Radford the prescription - for Valium and one refill - without examining her for what she said was severe back pain and without making a record of the visit as required by law, Eckert said.
Reach told Turk that he had known he was breaking the law when he wrote the prescription and that he was sorry for what he had done. He said he has suffered a significant loss of income as a result of being charged.
Alice Nosse, a registered nurse who had worked with Reach at Montgomery Regional Hospital until he was charged, testified Thursday that Reach was an excellent physician. Tension and stress in the emergency room dropped when Reach was working because of the confidence he inspired in the staff, she said.
Nosse added that she had seen Reach counsel patients in a "straight and honest" manner about abusing alcohol and drugs. It would be a tragedy for Reach to go to jail, she said. "He is just too good to waste."
by CNB