http://www.drjosephtalley.com

Dear friends, patients and supporters of Dr. Joseph Talley,

Dr. Joseph Talley's sentencing hearing was held on Thursday, April 18 at the North Carolina Medical Board offices in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The prosecuting attorney started the hearing by calling a drug addict who admitted that she obtained drugs by lying to Dr. Talley and other physicians and then gave them to her husband, also an addict, who ended up dying of an overdose. Another former patient testified against Dr. Talley telling the Medical Board that her husband died after swallowing a month of medication at one time and flushing it down with a fifth of liquor. Of course, both of these deaths were Dr. Talley's fault if you believe their version of the truth.

But the prosecutor saved the best for last and along the way managed to insult the intelligence of every pain patient and pain doctor in America. Board attorney, Bill Breeze, called Denise Cooper from Shelby, North Carolina who represented Cleco Healthcare, a small chain of walk - in clinics in the area surrounding Shelby.

With Mr. Breeze's prompting, Ms. Cooper testified that these clinics would take any and all of the thousands of Dr. Talley's patients left without long term opiate therapy for their pain relief, thus relieving the pain crisis that now exists due to Dr. Talley's absence.

However, under cross examination by Dr. Talley's attorney, Bob Clay, Ms. Cooper admitted that although the clinics would not turn anyone away, patients needing immediate care for serious pain were sent to area hospital emergency rooms. She stated that the clinics offered no long term care of any kind nor did she even know what opiates were. (Cleco Clinics were contacted in the days following the hearing and stated that they do not accept Talley patients).

I guess the Boards' attorney thought that since all of the pain patients attending were probably high on their drugs, they wouldn't know the difference. This goes to show how stupid the North Carolina Medical Board thinks that pain patients are.

Dr. Talley's attorney called four doctors who testified to Dr. Talley's abilities, his professionalism, the unusual amount of time and care that he gave each patient, his intelligence and his dedication to medicine and his patients.

All four physicians told the Board that they considered Dr. Talley brilliant and recommended that he keep his medical license.

Dr. Allen Spanos of UNC - Chapel Hill predicted that many suicides would result from depriving Dr. Talley's patients of pain care and access to their medications. Dr. Spanos also testified that he had personally called the North Carolina Medical Board, the North Carolina State Department of Health, and various other health and medical organizations asking what programs they had in place or assistance they could offer Dr. Talley's patients during this crisis. Not one organization had any crisis management plan in place nor could they provide Dr. Spanos with the name of anyone who could assist him.

This will speak for itself as to the state of medical care available in North Carolina and should serve as a warning to the public about how ready our state is in case of bio-terrorism.

Next, several patients told how their lives had changed for the better after Dr. Talley took over their care.

It was brought out during testimony by doctors and patients that the very charges Dr. Talley was convicted of, not performing enough physical examinations, was a common practice among doctors, not the exception and not against any law or state requirement. As Dr. Talley told the Board in his closing statement, they (the Board) couldn't find anything to charge him with after looking for over twelve years, so they had to make new rules just for him.

I can't say that the Board didn't pay some attention to the public because it had been the Boards' intention since their secret vote to charge Dr. Talley in 1999 to revoke Dr. Talley's license for good. However, because of the support and publicity generated for this beloved doctor, the Board voted to suspend his license for only one year.

This was expected. The Dr. Pories - led Board couldn't possibly back down, no matter what the testimony was, since they had already made up their minds by charging Dr. Talley. The Board was now the judge, jury, and executioner. Had the charges come before a jury, the verdict would have been very different, not controlled by one man.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is that the Board chose to believe two drug addicts instead of 4,500 pain patients and their doctors.
After the sentence was handed down, Dr. Robert Crummie summed up everyone's feelings. He called the North Carolina Medical Board "cowards" for being manipulated by several of the Board members and the DEA.

Obviously, an appeal to the State Court is always possible. Dr. Talley has not made that decision yet, but he has asked that his supporters continue their fight for pain patients' rights.

Dr. Talley has been an inspiration to us all, his work ethic, his skill as a doctor, and his patient care have always been exemplary and beyond reproach. He has helped us all and touched our lives in a positive way.

continued in next column ->

Let's help Dr. Talley by sending letters of support (asking him to return to Grover Medical Clinic in a year) and continuing to write the North Carolina Medical Board with the following:

1. Inundate the Board with letters demanding that they accept the pain guidelines adopted by the Board in 1996 and quit using their personal agenda and bias to skirt the rules and their duties.

2. Report every doctor to the Board who refuses to use opiates to treat your chronic pain and who willfully under-treats your pain.

3. Write letters to the North Carolina Medical Board demanding that they provide a contingency plan that will provide assistance to any patient of doctors that they suspend or has his license revoked.

4. Write letters to Dr. Pories at the Board, asking why the two doctors who practiced with Dr. Talley were not charged, although they wrote the same medicines and had identical practices.

The Board will maintain that this is not their job, but they need to make it their business since they in essence hold what can amount to life or death decisions involving every North Carolina citizen.

To every supporter and pain patient in America, keep up the fight. Dr Talley will not be the last doctor unjustly accused or railroaded by some State Medical Board or the DEA.

Let's continue to use the energy and support generated for Dr. Talley to help all of our pain doctors and their patients.

Write the North Carolina Medical Board at:

North Carolina Medical Board
Attn: Walter J. Pories, MD
1201 Front Street, Suite 100
Raleigh, NC 27609

Write Dr. Talley at:

Grover Medical Clinic
P.O. Box 45
Grover, NC 28073

If you have a complaint against a doctor, call the Board office at 800-253-9653 and ask that they send you a complaint form.

Please visit http://www.drjosephtalley.com