Local doc cleared of charges

Separate civil suit remains active

By FRITZ MAYER

NARROWSBURG, NY — A medical review panel has cleared a local doctor of all charges of medical negligence alleged by a physician at the New York State Department of Health (DOH). Panel members dismissed charges against Dr. Joy Mendelsohn, and said they were “impressed with the thoroughness of Mendelsohn’s medical records and her willingness to undertake the care of difficult patients.

The DOH physician had accused Mendelsohn of negligently proscribing painkillers and opiates in the treatment of several patients. But the review panel, which was also attached to the DOH, found that the physician who made the accusations was not credible.

Mendelsohn relinquished her right to practice medicine in the State of New York in June 2006. With the findings of the panel, which were released on June 22, her right to practice in the state was fully restored.

The panel found that most of the patients that were studied in the review had “complex physical and mental issues,” and that many physicians would decline to accept them as patients. The panel also found Mendelsohn to be a “caring, thoughtful, conscientious, hard-working, and devoted physician.”

Mendelsohn, who was formerly affiliated with Catskill Regional Medical Center, no longer practices at the hospital. She now works with Highland Physicians in Honesdale, PA.

Alenky v. Mendelsohn

In an unrelated matter, on June 11, the New York State Supreme Court granted Mendelsohn’s motion to move a civil trial she is involved in from Manhattan to Sullivan County.

According to court documents, Devin Alenky of Manhattan alleges that Mendelsohn over-prescribed pain medication to Neil Alenky from 1999 to 2004 from her office in Sullivan County, which lead to his premature death.

Part of the reason for the change of venue was that, according to Mendelsohn, the suit will require the testimony of a local coroner, Thomas Warren, and pathologist Wing Cheong Chow, M.D., who have knowledge of Alensky’s death. Warren and Chow, who according to the documents, “both concluded that Alenky died of a drug overdose,” supported the motion for the change of venue.

Mendelsohn argued that the main reason the suit was filed in Manhattan was because that’s where the complainant lived.

The Medicine Shoppe, which has an outlet in Sullivan County, and has also been named as a defendant in the suit, was opposed to the change of venue, because it was too early to tell who all the witnesses would be.

The court granted the change of venue because it would promote the “convenience of the material witnesses and the ends of justice.”