The Associated Press State & Local Wire

July 15, 2003, Tuesday, BC cycle

Psychiatrist accused of mistreating patients

SECTION: State and Regional

LENGTH: 591 words

DATELINE: PORTLAND, Ore.

A psychiatrist who once nearly lost his license is being investigated after patients at the Oregon State Hospital complained about his behavior and performance.
Dr. Charles E. Faulk allegedly denied medication to a severely mentally ill patient, causing the man to fall into psychotic episodes. Others patients claim he verbally abused them, such as telling a Cuban patient to “go back to where you came from.”
The allegations against Faulk, 53, were outlined in Department of Human Services investigative reports and other records obtained by The Oregonian.
According to the records, Faulk stopped prescribing antipsychotic medications to Neil Norton, 59, in June 2002 after accusing him of being a pill seeker.
Norton was a patient in one of the hospital’s secured forensics wards, which house people accused or convicted of crimes. Norton was found guilty except for insanity in 2002 in a Washington County arson case.
In the seven months after Faulk cut off his medicine, Norton lost nearly 40 pounds, frequently cried through the night and became convinced that someone had left a dead fetus near a soda machine on the ward.
Faulk, the ward’s full-time psychiatrist, visited his ailing patient only once during that period, records show, and ignored repeated staff warnings that Norton was falling apart.
When Faulk finally intervened in January, he did so with six electroshock treatments instead of the medications that had worked well for Norton, records show.
Electroshock therapy is a sometimes effective treatment for severe disorders, but experts say it should only be used when less invasive treatments fail.
“If he had paid attention to what was happening to me and started me on antidepressants again, I would have been fine,” Norton told The Oregonian.
Hospital Superintendent Stan Mazur-Hart said the findings are a serious matter and he will take punitive action, though he would not say if he plans to fire Faulk.
Faulk has been on leave from the hospital since May 15, a break he requested a month after officials in the Human Services Department concluded their questioning of dozens of his patients and co-workers.
Faulk declined to comment Monday, saying to do so would violate doctor-patient privilege.
In 1980, Faulk nearly lost his medical license for what the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners called “habitual or excessive use of intoxicants or drugs.” At the time, he acknowledged “a history of alcohol abuse and depression,” according to medical board records. Faulk was placed on 10 years probation and ordered to abstain from alcohol and prescription drugs.
The investigation into Faulk’s treatment of patients was touched off Jan. 10 when Wayne Skeen, another patient, became concerned about Norton’s deteriorating condition.
“I was angry when I saw what was happening to Neil, and I told staff members they needed to do something about it,” Skeen told The Oregonian.
Skeen, on behalf of Norton, himself and more than a dozen other patients, filed a wide-ranging complaint that alleged Faulk had neglected them and had verbally abused at least a dozen patients on his ward.
The patients claimed that Faulk had called one a “homicidal maniac” and told Skeen, “You are the worst patient I have ever had.”
Many of those allegations were never investigated by the Human Services Department because they did not constitute abuse under Oregon law, officials said. Others were investigated, but Mazur-Hart determined evidence was insufficient to substantiate an abuse charge.