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Georgia newspaper stirs concern about licensing of convicted hit-man

On almost two dozen occasions, the Georgia Composite Medical Board allowed doctors cited for either criminal practices or medical misconduct to resume work when other states refused to give them a license, according to an October 4 special report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The report cites doctors who inappropriately touched patients, over-prescribed medication, and a doctor who allegedly hired a hit-man to murder a patient, as being among those who found reprieve by the GCMB.

Physician Armando Sanchez, for instance, pled no contest in October 2002 to solicitation of capital murder, after being accused of attempting to hire a hit man to kill a dissatisfied patient in Houston. The medical board in Texas subsequently revoked his license, refusing to reconsider the decision. The medical board in California made the same determination. Georgia, however, allowed Sanchez to continue his practice on November 10 of 2010.

Members and representatives of the Georgia Composite Medical Board would not comment on specific cases, but did state that physicians who were reprimanded in the past, but no longer pose a threat to society, would be given another chance.

“I can’t go case by case, but I can give you a scenario,” said Dr. David Retterbush, the board’s chairman. “An individual will go to treatment, have advocates who say, ‘This person is rehabilitated. He can practice if he does this, does that.'”