N.H. doctor who wants to volunteer on pandemic frontlines denied again

Dr. Malathy Sundaram shows some of the hundreds of page of documents she has regarding her ongoing fight to reinstate her license with both the New Hampshire and Maine boards of medicine. (Rochester Voice photo)

CONCORD - In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Hampshire's medical licensing board has told a longtime New Hampshire physician willing to volunteer her services on the frontlines that she is not qualified to do so.

Dr. Mala Sundaram, an India-born émigré who earned her medical degree in New York more than 15 years ago and was granted her license to practice medicine in New Hampshire in 2005, was the late Dr. Terry Bennett's pick to take over both his primary care practice and Suboxone clinic, which has about 175 patients who need daily doses of the drug to stay off opioids.

However, Sundaram, a quiet, caring, compassionate physician, has had problems with the Maine Board of Medicine for several years now. She blames them on her language barrier (though she speaks fluent English), being a woman of color and being an independent unaffiliated physician.

Sundaram was devastated on Friday when the New Hampshire Medical Licensing Board chose to deny her request for reinstatement.

The situation is profoundly troubling for her because she took a Hippocratic Oath to help people who are suffering.

"We are in the midst of a pandemic and losing lives," she said on Saturday. "There is so much need for physicians, who are dying in the ER (emergency room)."

Adding to her frustration is the fact some of her problems with returning requests from the Maine Board of Medicine to fulfill compliance orders originated with her office manager, a Somersworth woman who was recently arrested for allegedly embezzling funds from her practice.

Amber Trainor (York County Jail photo)

Amber Trainor, 28, of 107 Franklin St., who worked for Sundaram at her former Sanford, Maine, practice, was arrested on Jan. 30 by Sanford Police on a charge of theft.

According to an affidavit obtained by The Rochester Voice, Trainor used the funds to pay for a Disney Cruise, energy bills, airline tickets to Florida, a tattoo and a health coach as well as many other purchases over an eight-month period in 2018.

The criminal complaint reflects a felony theft of more than $10,000 but the aggregate sum of money allegedly stolen from Sundaram was about $65,000, according to the affidavit written by Sanford Police Officer Chad Allen.

Most of the funds allegedly stolen by Trainor were the result of a Discover card taken out in Sundaram's name that listed Trainor as a qualified user.

Sundaram said prior to Friday's decision she offered up documents to the New Hampshire Board of Medicine and Rochester Voice articles that note Trainor's arrest and that she had hurt Sundaram's ability to comply with Maine Board of Medicine orders.

"I had sent all the evidence regarding Amber Trainor ... to the New Hampshire licensing board and read ... the fact that everything that the Maine licensing board was based on (Trainor's) word."

Trainor's next court appearance is scheduled for May.

Now after going to one re-education facility they are "requiring me to go to Texas (for another) Sundaram lamented. "How can I go to Texas? There is a lockdown.

"This board is trying to put me in more risk of contracting coronavirus and die," she said. "I have an autoimmune disorder and the board knows it."

She said New Hampshire is doing nothing but mimicking the Maine Board of Medicine which suspended her over her treatment of Lyme disease at her former Sanford practice, where she often prescribed intravenous doses of vitamins and antibiotics for patients with chronic forms of the disease, now called post-treatment Lyme diseases syndrome.

"They (state medical boards) like to harass independent physicians," said Sundaram, who has had to put up with random drug testing, psychological testing and even re-education classes as she sought to complete the 2017 compliance agreement with the Maine Board of Medicine. She was found noncompliant in July after which her license was suspended in both New Hampshire and Maine.

Her first re-education program (at a cost of $10,000) that was administered in 2017 by the Raleigh, N.C.-based Center for Personalized Education for Physicians found Sundaram of low intellect with poor cognitive reasoning and poor communication skills. Her testing put her in single-digit percentiles in multiple cognitive category functions.

However, Sundaram fumes at such assertions, claiming that those conducting the tests were unprofessional and racist. The manager of the testing did not return a phone message from The Rochester Voice.

Meanwhile, an independent audit of her work performed by a Maine physician confirmed Sundaram's assertions about the testing agency and her treatment by the Maine licensing board.

Dr. Kathleen McCall, a provider for Maine Health, who was assigned to audit Sundaram's practice, said she was shocked when she visited and watched Sundaram perform brilliantly at her Sanford practice.

"After reading the CPEP plan initially, I was prepared to be (evaluating) a marginal physician who would need a lot of help in terms of clinical skills and decision making to get back on track," she said in her report. "That isn't what I found at all. If anything, I think Dr. Sundaram's difficulties were probably incomplete documentation, a problem, honestly, that all of us in primary care face."

"As for her clinical knowledge, to be frank, I found all of the 'educational points' that CPEP stipulated to be excessive to the point of being ridiculous," she added.

McCall also pushed back on the notion that long-term antibiotics for Lyme disease symptoms is some type of quackery.

"We discussed the use of IV ceftriaxone (an anti-bacterial) for Lyme disease, which is the standard of care currently. Although I don't prescribe that, I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. In addition, there are multiple 'Lyme disease specialists' in the state who often have patients on multi-drug regimens for a year or longer without anyone questioning their judgment. My guess is that because they are articulate, Caucasian males, their care is much less likely to be called into question."

Another doctor who audited Sundaram practice, Dr. Elisabeth Fowlie Mock, a family physician affiliated with Eastern Maine Medical Center, "found her charts to be well documented, complete and in order and exceeded documentation in compliance and in excess of standards in all charts."

She also found Sundaram's Sanford office "warm and inviting" and watched as she discussed sometimes eight or nine separate patient concerns in a single visit, discussing with the patient every health problem and how to manage it by treatment or prescription.

"Her medical knowledge is adequate and competent, her professionalism of 'highest quality," Mock concluded.

Neither the Maine nor New Hampshire boards of medicine would comment for this story.

Sundaram suspects the New Hampshire board's decision is based on Maine's decision not to sign off on her compliance agreement from 2017, which was rejected by Maine in July. While the states have no official reciprocity agreement, Sundaram believes Maine's action ended any chance of gaining back her license in the Granite State.

Meanwhile, The Rochester Voice has learned that Sundaram has fulfilled all of the items listed in the Maine compliance agreement except for her refusal to prescribe long-term narcotics, which carries a $750 biweekly monitoring fee. She said she no longer prescribes long-term medications.

Now Sundaram faces an uncertain future and the selling of her home for lack of income, but it's the inability to help during the COVID-19 crisis that pains her the most.

"It's very unfortunate that (this happens) at a time when medical service is much needed, and I am ready to help people," she said.