LEWISTON – Neurosurgeon Joel I. Franck has been reprimanded by the Board of Licensure in Medicine and ordered to attend a course in ethics.
Franck, who practices at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, was disciplined for a 2004 incident in which he was arrested on assault and other charges while he was the hospital’s on-call brain surgeon.
The Licensure Board also reprimanded Franck for repeatedly canceling appointments for a patient, according to a press release issued on Wednesday.
On May 4, 2004, Franck was arrested and charged with attacking a woman inside her Webster Street home and threatening her with further violence.
Franck, arrested at his Durham home, was on call for medical emergencies at the time, according to jail officials. He was released on $200 bail a half-hour after he was taken into custody.
The woman Franck was accused of assaulting was working in the doctor’s billing office at the time, according to police reports. She did not require hospitalization.
As prosecutors worked on their case against Franck, the victim began to change her account of the encounter with Franck, court officials said. Investigators said the woman eventually recanted her story entirely.
In spite of the dropped charges, the Board of Licensure found evidence that Franck engaged in unprofessional conduct by becoming unavailable to see patients in the St. Mary’s emergency room due to his arrest.
Franck agreed to the reprimand on Tuesday. He will be allowed to continue practicing medicine, but was ordered to participate in ethics training within one year.
Franck began practicing medicine in Lewiston in 1986, working mostly at Central Maine Medical Center. In 1992, he filed allegations of malpractice against another physician at the hospital, and a court battle began.
CMMC administrators accused Franck of improperly disclosing another physician’s patient records. Franck accused the hospital of flinging accusations in order to oust him from the practice.
In 1993, a federal judge ruled that CMMC was legally entitled to expel Franck from its hospital community. The doctor went to work as an independent physician working in the St. Mary’s medical community shortly after.
Franck has at least one patent for a device he co-developed to help treat tremors and other neurological disorders.
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