Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 18, 1993 TAG: 9302180304
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GRAY AFRAID OF LOSING OTHER STATE LICENSES
Dr. William Gray has resigned his license to practice medicine in Virginia, but the state Board of Medicine has refused to accept it.The board refused because Gray did not sign a board-drafted agreement giving up his license forever, board spokesman Wayne Farrar said Wednesday.
John Grad, Gray's Alexandria attorney, said Gray is willing to give up his license forever in Virginia, but wouldn't sign the agreement because it could prevent him from practicing child psychiatry in other states.
Grad said the board not only wanted Gray to surrender his license, but to agree to allow the board to revoke his license based on unproven allegations that Gray misused his child psychiatry practice to force sex on young men.
If his license is revoked in Virginia, other states where he is licensed might also automatically revoke his license without giving him a chance to defend himself, Grad said. But, he said, if Gray surrenders his license in Virginia, it would not necessarily result in revocations in other states.
Gray still maintains he did nothing wrong and can "prove he's innocent." He says he agreed to surrender his license in Virginia only to avoid a trial on charges of forcible sodomy. He faced a possible life sentence.
Grad said he plans to file a lawsuit this week accusing the board of overstepping a court-approved agreement with Gray.
Under that agreement Gray, 51, surrendered his license last month in exchange for prosecutors' dropping charges that he misused his psychiatry practice to force sex on young men.
Gray then sent the board a letter saying "this is to notify you that I am resigning my license in the state of Virginia." But that statement is not enough for the board, which is the state agency authorized to regulate doctors, Farrar said.
"The board is not accepting that as a surrender of license" unless there are conditions and findings of fact, Farrar said.
One of the conditions Gray must accept is that the surrender is permanent and he could not reapply for a license in Virginia, Farrar said.
Farrar would not reveal what specific findings of fact the board wants Gray to admit. But, he said, if Gray does not agree to the board's terms, hearings to revoke Gray's license would resume as scheduled March 15.
Franklin County Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood, who arranged for Gray to surrender his license, said regardless of what the board does, "as far as I'm concerned he can't practice in Virginia. . . . He's not a doctor."
The board's hearings on Gray's license began last summer in Roanoke several months after the board summarily suspended Gray's license.
During those hearings young men and former patients of Gray testified that he used them as sex toys by intimidating them or buying sexual favors with money, drugs and fancy cars.
Gray has consistently denied any wrongdoing. In an interview last month, he said he agreed to surrender his license only because of the uncertainty of a trial. Gray indicated he might want to resume psychiatry and said he continued to have licenses in other states.
The other states are North Carolina and California. In North Carolina, his license was suspended as a result of the allegations in Virginia. But in California, his license remains valid because California authorities had not learned of the actions against Gray in Virginia.
California board officials learned of Gray's license surrender and the charges against him last month when contacted by the Roanoke Times & World-News.
Medical board authorities in California said they have written Virginia for details so they can determine whether to suspend or revoke Gray's license there.
California officials said that because of personnel shortages and inexperience, they failed to see official notifications that Gray's license in Virginia had been suspended last March. Normally, Gray's license would have been reviewed in California and likely suspended as well, authorities there said.
California's failure to notice the suspension highlights a problem nationally in which doctors who lose their licenses in one state sometimes move to another to continue their practice.
During the 1980s, numerous efforts were made to establish a national system for reporting medical disciplinary action. Among those was establishment of a national data bank listing all such actions against doctors. However, some states don't enter all such actions or often delay doing so for months. And some states don't monitor the data bank adequately.
Bernard L. Henderson Jr., director of the Virginia Department of Health Professions, says he believes a better automatic notification system needs to be developed. And he said he also believes the public should have access to the system so they can check out doctors before they trust them with their lives.