Iowa doctor agrees to refrain from surgery, pay $5,000 fine

A former Cedar Rapids brain and spine surgeon who was accused of “gross malpractice” by state regulators has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and refrain from performing surgery.

David Segal recently reached a settlement with the Iowa Board of Medicine, documents released this week show. The board, which licenses physicians, filed administrative charges against him in 2015. The allegations included that he failed to prevent "excessive infections" among his patients and that he used an inappropriate technique to manage leaking spinal fluid after operations. The board also accused Segal of failing to arrange to have another doctor care for his patients when he was absent.

The board said in a press release that Segal, 50, stopped performing surgery last May, because Parkinsonism caused his hands to be unsteady. “Dr. Segal continues to provide non-surgical medical services including, but not limited to, medical consultations, medical record reviews, and independent medical examinations,” the board wrote. In addition to paying the fine, Segal agreed to undergo training in professional ethics. He also repaid $11,580 that he’d been overpaid for services, the board said.

His lawyer, Guy Cook, said Friday that Segal denies providing poor medical care, but agreed to settle the case to avoid further legal costs. “Dr. David Segal is a highly trained and well respected neurosurgeon. He has successfully performed thousands of surgeries, including brain surgery. His superior skill as a neurosurgeon is well documented,” Cook wrote in an email to the Register. He said that due to Segal’s health issues, the doctor voluntarily stopped performing surgeries “out of an abundance of caution.” 

Cook said a staff member’s errors led to small overcharges for services, which the doctor has paid back. 

The medical board also recently reached a settlement with a former Waterloo physician who was accused of mismanaging chronic-pain cases.

Kent Miller, who practiced internal medicine, was accused by the board last April of continuing to prescribe addictive pills to people who showed signs of abuse or whose family members raised concerns. It said such issues involved “multiple patients in Waterloo between 2008 and 2014.” The administrative charges also said Miller wrote “derogatory or unprofessional criticisms of other physicians in his clinical notes.”

His answering service said Friday that Miller, 64, has retired from medicine. When the allegations surfaced last spring, his lawyer, Michael Sellers, said Miller denied giving poor treatment. Sellers said Miller was caught up in society's aggressive effort to rein in abuse of pain pills. “This guy is a renowned doctor in Waterloo. He doesn’t deserve to be pilloried,” he said. Sellers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.