Doctor Loses License for Refusing to Use Computers

Dr. Anna Konopka in her New Hampshire office. AP/REX/Shutterstock

Choosing to not use a computer cost Doctor her medical license.

Anna Konopka, 84, tells The Washington Post that she had to surrender her medical license last September after the New Hampshire Board of Medicine challenged her record keeping, a process she does entirely by hand. The only technology in she used in her office is a fax machine and a land line telephone. Her patients' records are kept in file cabinets. Leading to the medical board had concerns including her decision making and prescribing practices. Konopka reportedly left dosage of a medication up to a child’s parent and failed to treat her with the "proper medication". Doctor Konopka says the girl’s mother simply ignored her instructions.

After she was forced to surrender her license, officials started looking into additional complaints about Konopka. When the board refused to reinstate her license, she said it was because of her refusal to use computers.

Dr. Anna Konopka poses in her examination offices next to her house in New London on Monday. (DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER)

The New Hampshire establishment requires physicians to use an electronic drug monitoring program, a program designed to help monitor the current opiate epidemic and prescription abuse.

More than 25 of Konopka’s patients have written letters of support for the doctor asking for her license to be reinstated.

The superior Court Judge of Merrimack John Kissinger said that Konopka’s desire to continue to practice appeared to show that she sincerely wants to help her patients. He then went to said that it would be inappropriate for her to be allowed to continue to practice and “ignore the process established by the legislature to regulate the practice of medicine in this State.”

Dr. Anna Konopka speaks in her own defense during the emergency court hearing seeking an injunction on the loss of her medical license at Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord, N.H., Friday November 3, 2017. (AP)

State law prevents the board from releasing or discussing additional details regarding its now-closed investigation into the complaints against Konopka, a board member told the New Hampshire Union Leader. After Konopka surrendered her license, the board's medical review subcommittee received additional complaints against her, according to court documents.