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Facing complaints of five patient overdose deaths, Oklahoma doctor surrenders license [The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City]
[September 19, 2014]

Facing complaints of five patient overdose deaths, Oklahoma doctor surrenders license [The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City]


(Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 20--At 32 weeks, her baby's organs were likely almost developed, besides its lungs. The baby likely had finger- and toenails, maybe even a little bit of hair.

The mother had only about eight weeks before her baby was considered full term.

But the mother and baby never made it.

In September 2011, the mother died of a prescription drug overdose.

Six days before her death, she filled a prescription for 120 oxycodone 10 milligram pills, prescribed by Dr. Glenn Stow, a Shawnee family medicine doctor.

On Thursday, Stow surrendered his medical license, facing a complaint from the Oklahoma Medical Board that the drugs he prescribed were, at least, partially responsible for the overdose deaths of five patients, including the woman who was 32 weeks pregnant.



"The state would suggest that this is an appropriate resolution to the case," Jason Seay, an assistant attorney general who investigates cases, said during Thursday's board meeting. "We have the physician's license, his board certificate and his (wallet) card, and he is not practicing in the state of Oklahoma." Stow was not present at the meeting.

When reached by phone Thursday afternoon, he declined to comment.


Stow can reapply for his license in a year, although the board would need to vote on whether to approve that request.

He has an active medical license in Wisconsin, although the Oklahoma Medical Board will notify other medical boards of his license surrender.

Before becoming a doctor, Stow was a pilot in Minnesota, Arkansas and Mississippi. He started in Ashland, Wis., before starting his family medicine practice in Shawnee in 2003, medical board records show.

He attended Muskogee High School and then went to the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.

4 previous complaints Thursday's medical board meeting was not Stow's first interaction with the board. Rather, it was his fifth.

The complaints about Stow began in December 2007 when the board received a complaint alleging Stow was overprescribing controlled dangerous drugs. Board investigators pulled patient charts, but "no clear violations were found." Plus, Stow said he was interested in using the state's prescription drug monitoring program, which allows doctors to check whether patients have been prescribed certain types of drugs, including powerful painkillers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. The case was closed Jan. 11, 2008.

Eighteen months later, the husband of one of Stow's patients contacted the board, claiming his wife was an addict who had received narcotics from Stow. Board investigators reviewed the patient's prescriptions on the state's monitoring system, and "there did not appear to be enough evidence for any action at that time," records show.

Six months after that, a patient's daughter complained to the board that her mother was receiving large amounts of narcotics, and that her mother might be selling them. Stow was prescribing the mother with 60 oxycodone, 60 milligrams. The board medical adviser determined Stow's charts on the woman to be "adequate," and Stow was asked to attend a seminar on prescribing opiates. The case was closed about three weeks after the daughter's complaint.

Two months later, another complaint. A person told the board a female relative had overdosed and died on Xanax that Stow prescribed, according to board records. Stow met with board staff members and told them he had recently attended a class on chronic pain management.

Stow was "warned to be more vigilant, run PMPs and obtain urine drug screens on patients when the circumstances warranted. (Stow) was agreeable to those instructions." Most recent complaint Almost exactly three years later, a patient's daughter filed a written complaint with the medical board, alleging that Stow was prescribing high doses of potent painkillers to her mother in the absence of a medical need, board records show.

This complaint would prompt the investigation that would cost Stow his license.

Investigators looked at the mother's medical records, which "did not support the chronic use of pain medications." Stow had been prescribing the mother with 200 8-milligram Dilaudid, also referred to as hydromorphone, every 25 days. "That is the equivalent to approximately 256 milligrams of morphine per day, which is approximately 2 to 21/2 times what is considered the threshold for increased risk of accidental overdose," records show.

Overall, investigators found that Stow wrote, on average, about 900 to more than 1,000 controlled dangerous substance prescriptions per month to an average of 480 to 540 patients. In 2012, Stow was the third-highest prescriber of oxycodone to Medicaid patients. In 2013, he jumped to second-highest -- and he ranked among the top 20 prescribers of Xanax, or alprazolam, in 2012 and 2013, and of hydrocodone in 2012, Medicaid records show.

Meanwhile, medical board investigators found, among the patient charts that they reviewed, that Stow "failed to perform complete physical examinations prior to prescribing CDS (controlled dangerous substances), did not obtain records from previous physicians, did not order appropriate tests, did not obtain appropriate consultations or make appropriate referrals, did not perform adequate drug screens, did not establish legitimate medical needs for medications and did not maintain office records which accurately reflect the evaluations, treatment and medical necessities of treatment of his patients," according to the board's complaint.

In August 2013, about four months into the board's investigation, staff at the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control told the medical board about five of Stow's patients who had died from prescription drug overdose, based on reports from the medical examiner's office.

Each of the five patients who overdosed filled prescriptions from Stow less than a week before their deaths, board records show.

One patient, who overdosed in April 2010 on fentanyl, alprazolam and hydrocodone, died the day after Stow prescribed her "the strongest available transdermal fentanyl patch." This was the first time Stow prescribed the potent opiate to the woman, board records show.

Another patient who died from "acute combined drug toxicity" in December 2011, had filled about 34 controlled dangerous substance prescriptions from Stow, as well as 13 such prescriptions from seven other prescribers. This information likely would have been available by checking the state's prescription drug monitoring system.

The woman who was 32 weeks pregnant when she died had filled about 33 prescriptions from Stow for drugs such as oxycodone, hydromorphone and alprazolam between May 18, 2010, and Sept. 14, 2011.

During that same time period, she filled 10 other prescriptions for controlled dangerous substances from eight other prescribers.

The woman's charts show that Stow did not perform a urine drug screen on her, "despite the fact that causes for her multiple pain complaints were never diagnosed." The woman was frequently in the emergency room and had filled prescriptions from nine different providers at six pharmacies. She was incarcerated for four months for a DUI and had a history of illicit drug abuse, board records show.

Editor's note: It's estimated that 5 percent of the state's residents over age 11 -- about 164,000 people -- are abusing prescription narcotics. Head here to read more about Oklahoma's prescription drug addiction and the systemic issues worsening it.

___ (c)2014 The Oklahoman Visit The Oklahoman at www.newsok.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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