Disciplined dentist seeks to regain license
By BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal
WATERVILLE -- It was a dental practice run amok.
An office manager who sold sexual aids via office telephone.
A dentist who treated patients while wearing a belly-dancing costume.
A woman who said she thought her "face was going to explode" after having two teeth pulled and who later received emergency room treatment for an infection.
False prescriptions written for staff members or patients.
After-hours office parties with liquor, body shots and sex.
A dental assistant who described overall patient safety as "terrifying."
These complaints, and others, were filed by patients and employees against Waterville dentist Dr. Denise A. Nadeau. They are detailed in reports by Karen Packard, an investigator for the state Board of Dental Examiners, and in findings by the board. The documents are public record and were obtained by the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel through a Freedom of Access request.
The Board of Dental Examiners suspended Nadeau's license for six months beginning March 17, and put her on five years' probation with numerous conditions after hearing from co-workers and patients of Nadeau's at two dental offices.
After three days of hearings, the board voted unanimously to find Nadeau incompetent in several areas of dentistry practice, used a controlled substance for purposes other than dentistry, inappropriately prescribed or administered drugs, failed to follow infection control guidelines, violated standards of record-keeping, and violated board standards governing sexual conduct.
Nadeau's attorney, Mark Franco, said he was preparing an appeal of the findings.
Meanwhile, Nadeau's suspension ends Sept. 17 and Franco said the 47-year-old dentist wants to reopen her dental practice here.
But first, she must prove she's mended her ways.
Franco said Nadeau is in the process of complying with conditions to resume practicing dentistry. Those conditions include obtaining a psychological or psychiatric evaluation with a provider approved by the examiners' board.
The newspapers left numerous messages for Nadeau. Through her attorney, she acknowledged receiving the requests for comment but declined to be interviewed.
"She doesn't want it to impact or affect her appeal," Franco said Wednesday.
A Community Dental Center board member, identified in documents only as "Dr. P.," told an investigator that "the vast majority of the time (Nadeau) worked for the clinic, she was a lifesaver," and that "until near the very end of her time at the clinic, patients were pleased with the work she had done."
But board documents also note that Nadeau was "under great stress occasioned by her and her husband's attempts to successfully extricate his family out of Iraq and to the United States." Nadeau's husband is from Iraq.
They also say the complaints added to her stress, as did an office atmosphere "which had become increasingly poisoned" after an after-office party at Emergency Dental Services, which Nadeau opened on Kennedy Memorial Drive in 2006.
At that party, according to board documents, Nadeau had a dental assistant buy rum and tequila. The liquor was poured onto various body parts, including an office manager's bared breasts.
Nadeau told board members she was not in the room where the sexual contact was taking place and instead was elsewhere in the office on the phone talking to her son.
"Her denial of the event was found incredible by the board," wrote Dr. Jerrold H. Cohen, the board's acting president, as part of the findings.
Nadeau admitted showing employees during office hours a photo of herself nude, except for a teddy bear she was holding, and allowing sexual aids to be sold over the phone by the office manager.
The final straws came in March.
A 26-year-old patient told an investigator she thought her "face was going to explode" after two teeth were pulled in a five-hour operation that involved administration of 14 glass vials of dental anesthesia.
Nadeau admitted first attempting to extract a wrong tooth.
The woman, who said she cried with relief when leaving Nadeau's office, later received emergency room treatment for a dental infection.
The board found Nadeau failed to record the mistake; failed to give a written diagnosis or treatment plan; and failed to provide an after-hours emergency phone number, postoperative instructions or followup.
One dental assistant at Nadeau's office, who checked on that woman during the surgery, said overall patient safety was "terrifying."
A second dental assistant told board investigator Karen Packard that Nadeau mistakenly prescribed a medication a patient was allergic to. The assistant caught it before the patient left the office.
All three dental assistants had no prior experience in that job.
On March 13, three patients returned to the office with problems from root canals Nadeau had performed the previous week.
After an investigator interviewed staff, Nadeau and patients, the board immediately suspended Nadeau's license, saying her practice posed "immediate jeopardy to the health or physical safety of the public."
At her former workplace, Community Dental Center, also in Waterville, Nadeau performed a root canal on a female employee in March 2004, then insisted the woman fill a Vicodin prescription even though the woman said it made her ill.
Nadeau "borrowed" all 30 pills over the next three days, saying she had headaches.
Nadeau then wrote a subsequent prescription for the employee and kept the medication herself. Nadeau was reported for prescription diversion and the board governing the clinic suspended Nadeau for two weeks.
The office staff at the clinic, saying they were worried by the doctor's behavior, kept a journal about her. They say Nadeau wore a belly-dancing costume in the office, and invited employees to look at photos of naked men on the computer in her office.
They said Nadeau squirted a male patient in the crotch with a water syringe, then said, "I guess you're glad to see me." The man never showed up for subsequent scheduled appointments, staff noted.
Nadeau graduated from the University of Maine Dental Assisting Program in Bangor in 1986, and worked for 10 years as a dental hygienist. She graduated from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery at the University of Maryland in 1997 and was first licensed as a dentist in Maryland on July 25, 1998. She has renewed that license every two years.
She also practiced in the Columbia, Md., area for 11 years with two different practices.
Rona Melton, verifications coordinator at the Maryland State Board of Dental Examiners, said no disciplinary actions were taken against Nadeau in Maryland.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631
By BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Today's Top Headlines
from the Kennebec Journal
WATERVILLE -- It was a dental practice run amok.
An office manager who sold sexual aids via office telephone.
A dentist who treated patients while wearing a belly-dancing costume.
A woman who said she thought her "face was going to explode" after having two teeth pulled and who later received emergency room treatment for an infection.
False prescriptions written for staff members or patients.
After-hours office parties with liquor, body shots and sex.
A dental assistant who described overall patient safety as "terrifying."
These complaints, and others, were filed by patients and employees against Waterville dentist Dr. Denise A. Nadeau. They are detailed in reports by Karen Packard, an investigator for the state Board of Dental Examiners, and in findings by the board. The documents are public record and were obtained by the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel through a Freedom of Access request.
The Board of Dental Examiners suspended Nadeau's license for six months beginning March 17, and put her on five years' probation with numerous conditions after hearing from co-workers and patients of Nadeau's at two dental offices.
After three days of hearings, the board voted unanimously to find Nadeau incompetent in several areas of dentistry practice, used a controlled substance for purposes other than dentistry, inappropriately prescribed or administered drugs, failed to follow infection control guidelines, violated standards of record-keeping, and violated board standards governing sexual conduct.
Nadeau's attorney, Mark Franco, said he was preparing an appeal of the findings.
Meanwhile, Nadeau's suspension ends Sept. 17 and Franco said the 47-year-old dentist wants to reopen her dental practice here.
But first, she must prove she's mended her ways.
Franco said Nadeau is in the process of complying with conditions to resume practicing dentistry. Those conditions include obtaining a psychological or psychiatric evaluation with a provider approved by the examiners' board.
The newspapers left numerous messages for Nadeau. Through her attorney, she acknowledged receiving the requests for comment but declined to be interviewed.
"She doesn't want it to impact or affect her appeal," Franco said Wednesday.
A Community Dental Center board member, identified in documents only as "Dr. P.," told an investigator that "the vast majority of the time (Nadeau) worked for the clinic, she was a lifesaver," and that "until near the very end of her time at the clinic, patients were pleased with the work she had done."
But board documents also note that Nadeau was "under great stress occasioned by her and her husband's attempts to successfully extricate his family out of Iraq and to the United States." Nadeau's husband is from Iraq.
They also say the complaints added to her stress, as did an office atmosphere "which had become increasingly poisoned" after an after-office party at Emergency Dental Services, which Nadeau opened on Kennedy Memorial Drive in 2006.
At that party, according to board documents, Nadeau had a dental assistant buy rum and tequila. The liquor was poured onto various body parts, including an office manager's bared breasts.
Nadeau told board members she was not in the room where the sexual contact was taking place and instead was elsewhere in the office on the phone talking to her son.
"Her denial of the event was found incredible by the board," wrote Dr. Jerrold H. Cohen, the board's acting president, as part of the findings.
Nadeau admitted showing employees during office hours a photo of herself nude, except for a teddy bear she was holding, and allowing sexual aids to be sold over the phone by the office manager.
The final straws came in March.
A 26-year-old patient told an investigator she thought her "face was going to explode" after two teeth were pulled in a five-hour operation that involved administration of 14 glass vials of dental anesthesia.
Nadeau admitted first attempting to extract a wrong tooth.
The woman, who said she cried with relief when leaving Nadeau's office, later received emergency room treatment for a dental infection.
The board found Nadeau failed to record the mistake; failed to give a written diagnosis or treatment plan; and failed to provide an after-hours emergency phone number, postoperative instructions or followup.
One dental assistant at Nadeau's office, who checked on that woman during the surgery, said overall patient safety was "terrifying."
A second dental assistant told board investigator Karen Packard that Nadeau mistakenly prescribed a medication a patient was allergic to. The assistant caught it before the patient left the office.
All three dental assistants had no prior experience in that job.
On March 13, three patients returned to the office with problems from root canals Nadeau had performed the previous week.
After an investigator interviewed staff, Nadeau and patients, the board immediately suspended Nadeau's license, saying her practice posed "immediate jeopardy to the health or physical safety of the public."
At her former workplace, Community Dental Center, also in Waterville, Nadeau performed a root canal on a female employee in March 2004, then insisted the woman fill a Vicodin prescription even though the woman said it made her ill.
Nadeau "borrowed" all 30 pills over the next three days, saying she had headaches.
Nadeau then wrote a subsequent prescription for the employee and kept the medication herself. Nadeau was reported for prescription diversion and the board governing the clinic suspended Nadeau for two weeks.
The office staff at the clinic, saying they were worried by the doctor's behavior, kept a journal about her. They say Nadeau wore a belly-dancing costume in the office, and invited employees to look at photos of naked men on the computer in her office.
They said Nadeau squirted a male patient in the crotch with a water syringe, then said, "I guess you're glad to see me." The man never showed up for subsequent scheduled appointments, staff noted.
Nadeau graduated from the University of Maine Dental Assisting Program in Bangor in 1986, and worked for 10 years as a dental hygienist. She graduated from the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery at the University of Maryland in 1997 and was first licensed as a dentist in Maryland on July 25, 1998. She has renewed that license every two years.
She also practiced in the Columbia, Md., area for 11 years with two different practices.
Rona Melton, verifications coordinator at the Maryland State Board of Dental Examiners, said no disciplinary actions were taken against Nadeau in Maryland.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631