California revokes psychiatrist J. Victor Monke’s license

May 14, 2009

The Medical Board of California revoked psychiatrist J. Victor Monke’s license to practice medicine for failure to respond to the Board’s charges.  The Board issued an Accusation on March 24, 2009, alleging Gross Negligence, Repeated Acts of Negligence, Incompetence and Failure to Maintain Adequate and Accurate Records.  The document detailed Monke's treatment of a patient whom he first saw in April 2005, and who gave Monke a long list of psychiatric medications he was taking, including Adderall (amphetamine), Clonazepam (major tranquilizer), Prozac (antidepressant), Seroquel (antipsychotic) and Trazodone (sedative, anti-anxiety and antidepressant) as well as Vicodin, for pain and who also admitted to having a long history of drug use and at least one instance of treatment for drug abuse.  Four days later, the patient returned.  At that time, Monke wrote the patient prescriptions for Adderall and Clonazepam without conducting a thorough psychiatric, family and medical history or a mental status exam.  The Board's document states that “such an omission constitutes an extreme departure from the standard of practice and is gross negligence....”  Additionally, Monke failed to obtain full informed consent from the patient for the drugs he prescribed; continued to prescribe high doses of Clonazepam following a hospitalization during which the patient was diagnosed with polysubstance dependence and for which it was recommended that the patient be tapered off all drugs; Monke did not have an adequate knowledge of the drugs he prescribed the patient and did not communicate with the patient's general physician or perform the routine blood and liver tests required for patients on antidepressants and psychostimulants.

(Default Decision and Order, In the Matter of the Accusation Against J. Victor Monke, M.D., Physician’s and Surgeon’s Certificate No. G2335, Case No. 06-2007-187068, May 14, 2009.)