Accused doctor agrees to give up his license

Accused of negligently injuring women and providing substandard services, the owner and chief doctor of a string of Southern California women's clinics has agreed to give up his medical license.

Dr. Nicholas G. Braemer will stop practicing Aug. 1 under a negotiated settlement with the Medical Board of California. He provides abortions and family-planning services at clinics in Chula Vista and nine locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

A year ago, the board formally accused Braemer of gross negligence in a 1996 abortion in Panorama City that left a woman with serious bowel damage. That occurred while his medical license was under probation for previous findings of negligence, according to state documents.

State investigators later added two allegations of negligence and unprofessional conduct, contending that Braemer told another woman that her abortion was successful when she was still pregnant and that he allowed untrained staff to perform and interpret ultrasound pregnancy tests.

Reached yesterday for comment, Braemer said, "I chose not to fight it. I agreed to retire. I'm 60 years old, I'm financially OK. I'm ready to do other things."

Braemer and his lawyer, Mark Levin, declined comment on the allegations.

His case incenses both sides in a controversy over the workings of the medical board, which licenses and disciplines physicians.

Some critics say the board is slow to take disciplinary action, while others charge that the board unfairly targets abortion providers compared to other doctors with similar infractions.

In the signed agreement to surrender his license, Braemer admitted gross negligence in the 1996 case, in which he sent a woman home without repairing her punctured uterus and damaged bowel.

The woman later was hospitalized for a month and underwent multiple surgeries, but has recovered, said her lawyer, Jim Osborne. She settled a civil suit against Braemer for an undisclosed amount of money.

Incomplete abortions, perforated uteruses and damaged bowels are complications that sometimes occur during abortions, said medical board spokeswoman Candis Cohen. Those complications alone do not prove negligence, but "it's what the doctor does after it happens that matters," she said.

Braemer said his clinics will remain open, with another doctor as owner, but will not provide late abortions, as he did, between the 24th and 26th weeks of pregnancy.

His clinics, including the one on H Street in Chula Vista, are called Clinica Medica para la Mujer de Hoy (Medical Clinic for the Woman of Today). Some also use the names Community Women's Medical Clinic and Family Planning Medical Center.

Braemer received his California medical license in 1966. According to state records, the medical board in 1983 put him on five years' probation after a criminal conviction for Medi-Cal fraud.

He began another five years' probation in January 1995, on the basis of a 1987 abortion in which he allegedly removed only part of the fetus, causing the woman to suffer infection and miscarriage, state medical records say.

After seeking to revoke Braemer's license in June 1999 because of the 1996 case, the board in November accused him of negligence in a 1998 abortion in Huntington Park for allegedly telling the woman that her abortion was successful. Six weeks later, another physician found that she was 15 weeks pregnant, and she had to have a second abortion, according to records.

She has sued Braemer for emotional distress. A hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court is set for December.

On Sept. 16, medical board investigators posed as patients at four of Braemer's 10 clinics, one in Huntington Park, another in Baldwin Park and two in Los Angeles.

On the basis of those visits, another medical board accusation was filed in April charging that Braemer had allowed medical assistants to perform ultrasound pregnancy tests and interpret the results to patients and that this amounted to their practicing medicine without a license.