Va. eye doctor let suspended doc practice in her office, kept her own license by paying fine

All the details in our Health Safety stories come from publicly available Final Orders, Consent Orders, Orders of Suspension and other documents from the Virginia Department of Health Professionals. For more information, see the Editor’s note below the story.

For nearly 25 years, Richmond-based ophthalmologist Petrovia Rich had an unblemished record. That is, until she helped a Petersburg doctor who was a danger to his own patients illegally run an unlicensed practice out of her office.

Petersburg-based ophthalmologist Willis Madden, who died in early 2021, demonstrated a “pattern of substandard care and poor clinical judgement” as early as the late 1980s. However, his medical license wasn’t suspended until 2007—nearly two decades and several patient complaints later—for violating several laws and running a “dangerous and incompetent practice.”

Madden—who’d made at least three medical malpractice payouts in a ten-year period by the time his license was suspended for good—harmed and endangered the health of multiple patients throughout the years due to negligence. He also violated Virginia code dozens of times. These violations included keeping expired drugs and supplies in his practice, letting his CPR certification expire, lacking several additional required certifications, performing numerous procedures incorrectly, administering anesthesia without proper training, not maintaining the required inventory of controlled substances within his practice, and multiple additional violations.

Madden petitioned to have his license reinstated in 2009, but his petition was denied due to the egregious, repeat nature of his violations of Virginia law. The Virgina Board of Medicine unequivocally determined that Madden’s continued practice would be a “substantial danger” to “public health and safety.” This didn’t stop Rich from illegally helping Madden to continue to practice medicine without a license.

For over half a year in 2009, Rich allowed Madden to examine as many as 50 to 60 patients in her office. She also illegally signed off on prescriptions that Madden wrote former patients while unlicensed, without conducting her own examinations of the patients. Neither Madden nor Rich informed the patients that Madden’s license was suspended, allowing them to operate under the false assumption that he was a fully licensed medical professional.

Rich was issued a reprimand by the VDM in 2010 for illegally aiding and abetting Madden’s unlicensed practice. Despite endangering dozens of patients, she kept her license to practice medicine on the condition that she pay a $1,500 penalty to the board.

Nearly a decade later, her license was suspended for good, but not for egregious behavior. She'd failed to pay the board $270 in routine fees.

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To file a formal complaint against a health professional, click here. For links to the public information informing this story, see below.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: When citizens are a danger to the public safety, law enforcement arrests them and charges them with crimes; they have the opportunity to face a jury of their peers; if convicted, they serve time and/or probation that can often ensnare them in the system for years.

When a medical professional is an alleged danger to the public safety, the Virginia Department of Health Professionals handles all facets of the inquiry, including the investigation and penalties. And sometimes, even when a medical professional is found liable of doing harm to patients, they may face a reprimand, pay a fine and continue to practice, without missing a day of work and with little chance for the public to see what they’ve done.

The Health Safety stories in this series tell the facts of cases where medical professionals endanger our public health safety. They also bring you into the world of the medical board’s consent orders and public final orders, so you can see exactly how the VDHP’s self-policing system works.

LINKS TO DOCUMENTS REFERENCED ABOVE:

Petrovia RichLicense Number: 0101038385

Willis MaddenLicense Number: 0101037342

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Virginia opthalmologist kept license by paying fine after letting suspended doc use her office