BRUCE KAUFFMAN
Staff Writer

SAN MARCOS ---- Palomar board president Robert L. Dougherty Jr.'s record as a physician has come under scrutiny amid a simmering election campaign that pits supporters of unionized teachers and staff against Dougherty and another incumbent. His record, according to state medical authorities, has been found wanting.

The state Medical Board in the mid-1990s suspended Dougherty's license to practice medicine for six months. It also put him on 10 years of administrative probation, meaning that his Poway practice is monitored by another physician and he is overseen by a non-medical employee of the state board as a probationer.

Dougherty, one of four candidates in the Nov. 5 election for two four-year seats on the community college district board of governors, has denied any wrongdoing. Dougherty said he has no intentions of pulling out of the race.

"People have seen my performance on the board, good or bad, for 19 years," he said, "and they have seen me to be an ethical and hardworking person on the board."

Dougherty's board colleagues say he has done a good job since he was first elected in 1983. Incumbent Michele Nelson, who also seeks one of the four-year terms up in November, said she has observed Dougherty "to be extremely devoted to the college, he is meticulous about his participation and he tries to stay informed," she said. "He's been a very participatory and dedicated board member."

As for the medical board's actions, she said, "I think the public is going to take these things into consideration."

Another colleague, Ralph Jensen, whose term is not up this year, said Dougherty's politics may be to the left of his own, but said the board president has been a "very good, constructive, knowledgeable trustee."

Noting that as a board member Dougherty is not a college employee but rather an elected official, Palomar College President Sherrill Amador said it is up to the public to decide whether he should continue on the board.

She added that in her 15 months at Palomar, "I have always known Dr. Dougherty to have the best interest of the students in mind and to serve the interests of the citizens of the district."

As it became clear this summer that the incumbents would face a challenge in the race for the college governing board, rumors surfaced more and more to the effect that Dougherty had professional licensing problems.

Along with copies of 10-year-old newspaper clips about the criminal charges that were mailed anonymously earlier this month to the North County Times, the rumors prompted the newspaper to check Dougherty's standing with state medical authorities. The medical board then released some 87 pages of documents that it said comprised the public record related to its licensing of Dougherty.

In the documents the state board pointed to a relationship with a patient that a hearing officer wrote "stretched the traditional notion of doctor-patient well beyond the breaking point," pulled Dougherty's license in 1997 for 180 days and ordered the probation. If he meets the conditions of his probation, Dougherty would see sanctions lifted in the last quarter of the year 2007.

Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the medical board, said that most probation for errant physicians lasts three to five years. She characterized Dougherty's punishment as "stiff."

Asked for comment, Dougherty said he has always practiced medicine properly and prescribed drug dosages well within acceptable levels. He also said the hearing officer and the board ignored evidence ---- such as court rulings and consultants' reports ---- that would have strengthened his case. He said he would have formally appealed the medical board's action, but instead accepted advice from a lawyer that no matter how innocent he might be, the fight would ultimately be futile.

In a note he wrote Monday to the North County Times, Dougherty suggested that a Republican-dominated medical board sought to oust him from his Palomar post for political reasons. Dougherty said he cared for the mother of former President Bill Clinton and that the FBI told Clinton that the medical board's actions were based on politics.

But in a 37-page report adopted in July 1997 by the Medical Board of California, administrative law judge Stephen E. Hjelt wrote that Dougherty's "multiple acts of misconduct are quite serious. He fails to acknowledge any responsibility for any of his actions. He blames others or completely excuses his actions."

Hjelt, who presided over seven days of hearings on the case in May 1997 in San Diego, also wrote that Dougherty "is ... dishonest" and "represents a present danger to the public."

The hearings focused on Dougherty's treatment of one patient in particular, a combat veteran of Vietnam and former San Diego city police officer named Lance Scott, who was treated by Dougherty from the mid-1970s until his death in August 1996. The two had met in the early 1970s when Scott worked as an auto mechanic at a Sears store.

The hearing officer called the doctor-patient relationship in Scott's case "an utterly appalling chronicle of medical mismanagement."

Noting that Dougherty had impeccable academic credentials (the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California school of medicine), service in the U.S. Army medical corps, had a lifetime of volunteer service, was a holder of public office as far back as 1972, and pioneered work in the use of hypnosis to manage pain, Judge Hjelt called the physician "a bundle of contradictions."

He said Dougherty "must be judged" solely on his work as Lance Scott's physician, "one patient out of thousands."

Dougherty had faced criminal charges ---- seven felony counts of illegally writing prescriptions for Scott ---- in 1992 in what was then Municipal Court in San Diego. On May 14 of that year, Dougherty pleaded not guilty. He posted a $50,000 bond. On July 28, 1992, the charges were dropped. Municipal Court Judge Joan Weber said prosecutors had not proven any laws were broken and she said the matter might be something for the state medical board to look at.

Dougherty said dropping the charges embarrassed state authorities, who then needed to redeem their reputations by finding some justification to punish him.