Court Opinion

ID: 9535671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:51:49.584995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:18.169303
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I believe that the challenged order comes well within the scope of the statutory authorization. AS 08.01.087(b) specifies in part:
If it appears to the commissioner that a person has engaged in or is about to engage in an act or practice in violation of a provision of this chapter or a regulation adopted under it . . .he may
(1) issue an order directing the person to stop the act or practice
The commissioner had every reason to conclude that Dr. Smith had engaged in acts or practices in violation of relevant statutes and regulations. The evidence was clear that he had violated AS 08.36.310(2) and (4) which provide:
A license and registration may be revoked, suspended, or annulled, or the licensee may be reprimanded, censured, or disciplined by the board after hearing when he .
(2) is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude .
(4) commits willful or gross malpractice or willful or gross neglect in the practice of dentistry .
Dr. Smith was convicted of the crime of assault arising out of the deaths of two of his patients. It appeared to the commissioner that Dr. Smith had committed gross malpractice and showed gross neglect in the practice of dentistry. The commissioner was thus authorized to issue an order directing Dr. Smith to stop the act or practice.
The shocking lack of judgment exhibited by Dr. Smith in admittedly causing two deaths and having at least two other deaths which may have been caused by his gross negligence places his judgment as a dentist so much in question that the commissioner would have been authorized to stop his practice of dentistry entirely. Having the broad power to so act, the hearing officer was justified in fashioning a less restrictive order assuring that any practice by Dr. Smith would be properly supervised by another dentist.
I am influenced by the fact that the statute refers not only to acts but to practice. Practice is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as:
[rjepeated or customary action, habitual performance, a succession of acts of similar kind; habit; custom; usage; application of science to the wants of men; the exercise of any profession.1
Under the present circumstances when multiple deaths have been caused by the malpractice of dentistry, the term “practice” should be construed as including the entire practice of dentistry. In any event, where there have been substantial and numerous acts evidencing a lack of mature judgment in the practice of dentistry,2 the order di*632recting that one stop those practices, to be meaningful, may severely restrict the manner in which dentistry is practiced.
It is my opinion that in order to protect the lives of patients, pending the outcome of license revocation proceedings before the state Board of Dental Examiners, the hearing officer’s order was well within the statutory authority.

. Black’s Law Dictionary 1335 (4th ed. 1951).

. Included in evidence before the hearing officer were the following examples of gross malpractice:
Dr. Smith did not take medical histories. (Exhibits 27, 18, 32, 25, 24, 26, 15, 37). He seldom followed accepted pre-surgical procedures. (Exhibits 27, 32, 17, 25, 24, 26, 15, 21, 35, 37). He put patients under anesthesia for hours at a time and, on occasion, when procedures ran into the lunch hour and the patients were not yet awake, he would clear the instrument tray and pull out his lunch and eat it off the tray. (Exhibits 15, 35). When lint would collect on the anesthetic machine, he was known to take a steel pick to pick it out and then use the same pick immediately afterward in a patient’s mouth. (Exhibit 15). *632On occasion he would instruct his assistants to mix drugs together in the same syringe even though there was a great risk of drug contamination. (Exhibit 12).
His office lacked basic emergency equipment. (Exhibits 15, 19). He seldom closely monitored patients. (Exhibits 15, 19). He was known to undertake surgical procedures on the weekend or evenings by himself. (Exhibits 21, 37). Patients who remained “under” after the conclusion of the procedure were taken to an empty recovery room where they would be left alone. (Exhibits 21, 37). Sometimes these individuals would leave without further contact with the doctor or his assistants. The assistants themselves were seldom trained except to the extent the doctor himself provided instruction, [footnote omitted]
There were deaths. Not simply those that led to his conviction, but others as well . at least five. (Rec. on Appeal 846-928). In at least three of those instances, the surgical procedure involved was fillings.
After his conviction for assault in connection with the deaths of two of his patients, Dr. Smith ceased to practice dentistry and oral surgery until at least 1976, and possibly early 1977. During the intervening years, Dr. Smith made no attempt to keep himself current in the field of oral surgery. There is, for instance, no record that Dr. Smith ever attended any continuing education program in the interim. (Rec. on Appeal 613-14)