Dr. Fisher Back in Practice!

Dr. Frank Fisher Announces Opening of Eel Valley Rural Health Clinic; Alex DeLuca; War on Doctors/Pain Crisis blog of the Pain Relief Network; 2007-07-22.

[Invitation to Grand Opening (PDF)]

I admit I am of two minds about Frank Fisher’s return to the practice of medicine. Mostly, I am very happy for him, because this is what he most wanted. Frank Fisher missed the clinical practice of medicine in a way that I, personally, do not. So congrats, friend.

Dr. Frank Fisher, circa 2007 - headshot

Dr. Fisher last practiced medicine some eight years ago. In the interval he has been criminally prosecuted for murder, civilly sued for wrongful death, and administratively prosecuted by the State of California medical board and stripped of his licenses to practice and prescribe.

“I call it triple jeopardy. That’s why doctors won’t treat [chronic pain]. - Dr. Frank Fisher.”¹

All of this because he presumed to treat poor people to the medical standard of care for chronic pain, which is opioid titration to analgesic effect or to untreatable side-effect.

Dr. Fisher’s case is one of the most famous in the modern war on doctors, and has been the subject of much journalism and academic writing, and advocacy discussion.

Eight years of financial and professional ruin; but he’s back, state medical license and DEA license to prescribe controlled substances fully restored. As those of you who have followed the War on Doctors know, to recover fully in the professional sense after having suffered the full savagery of the government’s drug war police and judicial machinery is almost unheard of, and is a testament to Dr. Fisher’s integrity as a human being and a physician.

Journalist Kimberley Ross, in her July 22 article, Doctor Starts Anew in Del Rio - Fisher Opts Not to Supply Pain Meds, writes:

“Dr. Frank Fisher won’t prescribe any controlled substances. Although he is permitted, doing so is too risky both to his career and his freedom. ‘I don’t have a death wish,’ said Fisher, 54…

“The nonprofit office will serve a community of about 3,000 people in Rio Dell, where there is no full-time physician. The nearest town’s doctor doesn’t accept Medi-Cal patients, as Fisher plans to. He hopes to provide a mental health and dental program, too.

“‘The idea is to develop a full-service community clinic like I had before,’ Fisher said of his former practice in Anderson, where about 80 percent of his clients were on Medi-Cal.”

The reason I am of two minds about Frank’s return to clinical medicine is because of the very important and effective work he has been doing in the Pain Relief advocacy movement during his years of torment and exile. He has become a fierce and sought after defense consultant and expert witness in war on doctors cases, and I am very fortunate to have him as a mentor in this work. He’s been involved, often with Siobhan Reynolds and the Pain Relief Network (PRN), with dozens of these, both high profile cases (Hurwitz, McIver, Heberle, Rottschaefer) as well as unheard of but very important state medical board actions against pain physicians.

This experience forms the core of effective, real world, knowledge that PRN brings to the table. Reynolds and Fisher have developed a uniquely comprehensive understanding of drug war prosecutions of physicians and the resultant rampant untreated and mistreated chronic pain in this society.

So good luck to Dr. Frank Fisher and his patients, and a hearty THANK YOU! from the Pain Relief advocacy movement.

Footnotes