Surgeon to stop treating patients

April 18, 1998

Surgeon to stop treating patients

By Lou Chapman, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Fort Worth, TX - An Arlington orthopedic surgeon with a documented history of drug abuse has agreed to stop treating patients after testing positive for cocaine and other drugs during random urine tests, state records show.

Dr. Bruce Hinkley, 52, was undergoing voluntary urine tests as one condition of a 10-year probation that he agreed to with the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners in 1989.

Part of that agreement required Hinkley to abstain from drug and alcohol use.

During a hearing on the matter this month, Hinkley told the board that the test results were inaccurate, according to agency documents. Emil Cerullo, Hinkley's office administrator, said the surgeon, had no comment on the board's latest disciplinary action.

The board's documents state that Hinkley tested positive for cocaine on Jan. 12 and Jan. 26, and for benzodiazepines, a class of tranquilizers, Feb 2.

He said during a board hearing that he has not ingested cocaine since 1988 and has not taken benzodiazepines except as approved by the medical board's earlier order, the board's disciplinary order says.

The documents state that Hinkley agreed to the new restrictions in part to avoid the cost and time of going to court.

Before he can treat patients again, he must appear before the board and provide "sufficient evidence and information: that he is "physically, mentally and otherwise competent to safely practice medicine," the board's order says.

His 1989 probation did not have that stipulation.

In 1989, Hinkley agreed to a state board order that revoked his license, but simultaneously put that revocation on hold and replaced it with a 10-year probation.

That disciplinary action stemmed directly from one taken earlier that year by the Oklahoma medical board, which place Hinkley on probation because of cocaine use.

Texas medical board records state that when he was disciplined in Oklahoma, Hinkley had a seven-year history of drug abuse and that he had been suspended from an Oklahoma hospital in 1988 after testing positive for cocaine use during a urine screening.

The Oklahoma board documented that Hinkley had been hospitalized once for "detoxification" and once for "disorientation secondary to drug abuse."

In 1989, he moved from Oklahoma to the Fort Worth-Dallas area at the request of the clinical director of the substance abuse program at Baylor Medical Center so that Hinkley could be "physically located in a support group," Texas' 1989 probation order states.