Dr. John Grant Could Lose Medical License

  • Dr. John F. Grant

    Dr. John F. Grant

An accusation has been filed by the Medical Board of California through the California State Attorney General’s Office against John Francis Grant, M.D., who was known in the Mountain Communities during 2007 as the “House Call Doctor.” The accusation, filed September 5, charged Grant with repeated “negligent acts, incompetence, failure to maintain adequate records and excessive prescribing,” of a controlled narcotic substance.

Late in the summer of 2006, Grant arrived, met patients, then abruptly left the Frazier Mountain Community Health Center in Lebec.

By September 2006, Clinica Sierra Vista was searching for another full time physician. Grant rotated through other Clinica facilities in Bakersfield, then returned to advertise and serve as an on-call personal care doctor on the mountain.

At the time, The Mountain Enterprise learned that Grant had changed his name from John Francis Garcia, according to the Medical Board of California.

The gross negligence charges say that in February 2004 he took a patient referred to as C.W. who he diagnosed as having “attention deficit syndrome, depression and bi-polar condition.” He is charged with failure to maintain records and prescription of excessive doses (6,670 tablets) of Norco (hydrocodone bitrartrate) to C.W. while she received 6,000 additional tablets from another physician as well.

In addition, the charges say that his membership was terminated from his group practice because “he did not have adequate malpractice insurance and had abandoned his patients.”

In a 2006 interview, he spoke of a divorce, financial problems and losing his practice in Northern California. The filing lists a bankruptcy and difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service.

Grant graduated from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in 1996 and completed his residency at Kaiser Permanente Family Practice in Orange County.

Grant’s three telephone numbers have been disconnected and calls to his pager to invite him to respond to the charges have not been answered.

This is part of the September 26, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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