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Physical therapists get licenses revoked, suspended over patient sexting

The Virginia Board of Physical Therapy has revoked the license of a Lynchburg physical therapist and suspended the license of a Yorktown physical therapist assistant over unrelated sexting incidents with patients. 

The board entered an order to revoke Stephen Maynard Scott’s physical therapy license on Oct. 11 for “conduct with a former patient that was of a sexual nature.” 

According to the board, Scott treated a 74-year-old woman recovering from a stroke at a rehabilitation facility in Stuart from January to March 2023. The patient had depression, bipolar disorder and symptoms of dementia, according to board documents. Shortly after the patient returned to her home in January 2024, Scott began sending her text messages, some of which were sexually explicit, as well as photos of his genitalia, according to the board’s report. Some of the messages were sent while he was at work, according to the board.

Scott, who is listed as living in Lynchburg and obtained his physical therapy license in 1999, was suspended from the facility in February. His employer, the board documents state, reviewed Scott’s work laptop and found that he had been on dating sites for senior women and had been “messaging elderly women while he was at work.” 

The Virginia Board of Physical Therapy had already entered an order in May 2023 placing Scott on indefinite probation stemming from separate allegations that he sent inappropriate texts to an 81-year-old patient.

After three years, Scott can request his license be reinstated at a formal administrative proceeding of the board.

In a separate and unrelated case, the board entered an order on Oct. 11, indefinitely suspending the physical therapy assistant license of  John Cody Bradshaw of Yorktown “for a period of not less than six months.” 

In January and February, according to the board, Bradshaw provided in-home treatment to a patient. Prior to a scheduled visit on Feb. 22, the board alleged, Bradshaw sent a text to the patient providing his personal cell number. The pair continued to text and the messages became sexually explicit and included photos of a sexual nature.

Bradshaw can apply for his license to be reinstated after undergoing a psychological assessment and taking a course on professional boundaries.

Roanoke-area pediatrician is suspended over alleged sexual, profane comments

Following complaints from co-workers and patients’ parents over sexual and profane comments, the Virginia Board of Medicine suspended the medical license of Roanoke-area pediatrician Dr. Dalton M. Renick on Aug. 22, stating that “a substantial danger to public health or safety” warranted Renick’s summary suspension.

The board’s Notice of Formal Hearing included allegations that Renick, who formerly worked for Carilion Clinic in Roanoke County and New Beginnings Pediatrics in Blacksburg, used sexual and profane language with some patients and their guardians, including comparing syringe feeding a newborn to oral sex and stating that the smell of newborns makes him “want to f**k them.”

In a statement posted on Facebook, New Beginnings noted that Renick “is no longer employed or has any association with New Beginnings Pediatric.” Carilion Clinic issued a statement noting that Renick was terminated by the health system on Feb. 8 and that Carilion is cooperating with the state Board of Medicine’s inquiry. “The claims contained in the Board of Medicine Notice of Hearing are concerning to us, and we take such allegations very seriously,” Carilion Clinic said in the statement. 

While state medicine board documents do not mention where Renick worked for Carilion, the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System’s Provider Identifier Registry connects Renick with the address of Carilion’s Postal Drive pediatrics office in Roanoke County. 

The Board of Medicine’s order noted that a hearing will be set “within a reasonable time” to hear evidence and act on allegations against Renick, who could not be reached for comment Monday.

The board’s notice notes an interview with a Carilion senior director of outpatient pediatrics who reported hearing about behavioral issues with Renick, “mostly related to the use of foul language,” shortly after he was hired by Carilion in August 2021. These included “dropping the ‘f-bomb’ in front of children who were old enough to repeat the language.” After being coached on his behavior, it improved “a bit,” including to the director.  

Additionally, the notice includes allegations that Renick made inappropriate comments about Black, Asian and intellectually disabled people. Another section of the notice includes an interview with a section chief of general pediatrics who stated that Renick had said that “people don’t get my sense of humor.”

New Beginnings Pediatrics in Blacksburg did not return a request for comment. In the Facebook post, the medical office stated that its leadership learned about the allegations against Renick on Aug. 22. “This was not made accessible to the public, including us, until then, and we have responded as fast as possible,” New Beginnings Pediatrics stated.

The post also stated that the office has not received any complaints about Renick. “We remain committed to providing the best care possible to our families and will protect our patients and their families at all costs,” it added. 

On a Roanoke section of the social network and discussion forum Reddit, one poster mentioned Renick had been recommended for neurodivergent patients. Another poster on the site described taking their three children to see Renick at Carilion and that he “was the only … [pediatrician] who listened to [me] about my oldest’s behaviors/delays and got us the referrals we’d desperately needed. We never had encounters of this nature.”

Another Reddit poster on the site thanked “every single employee who came forward and spoke out against him and brought this to light,” noting that Renick was a popular pediatrician in Roanoke. 

 

Forty applicants vying for Shenandoah medical marijuana license

Forty complete applications were received for conditional permits to operate as the state’s sole licensed pharmaceutical processor of medical cannabis for a region including the Shenandoah Valley, as well as the cities of Charlottesville and Fredericksburg and the counties of Spotsylvania and Stafford, according to the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.

Each company paid an $18,000 fee for the opportunity to be granted the sole medical marijuana license to serve the CCA’s health service area 1 (HSA 1), which has been tied up in litigation for years. The HSA 1 region has not had a licensed medical marijuana dispensary available since the state began issuing pharmaceutical processor licenses in 2018.

“This is a pay to try-to-play,” said Eric Postow, Fairfax County-based managing partner for Holon Law Partners. “That really just kind of demonstrates the interest in the business community wanting to service the cannabis sector.” Postow led a team that helped put together an application for Albemarle County-based Integra Vertical to be considered for the HSA 1 license.

The competition also reflects the lucrative nature of the license, which allows licensees to open and operate dispensaries within their designated HSA region. While the CCA doesn’t track sales revenues, the state’s dispensaries made 3.4 million medical cannabis dispensations in 2023. Virginia patients paid an average $14 per gram for medical cannabis flower at dispensaries, compared with $10 in Florida and Pennsylvania, according to a November 2023 market study conducted for the authority.

Virginia Cannabis Control Authority Chief Officer Jeremy Preiss, the agency’s acting head, provided Virginia Business a chart listing the names of applicants on Tuesday. It began with AYR Virginia, which lists a principal address that is shared by AYR Wellness, a Miami-based multistate cannabis business.

Another applicant for the HSA 1 license, Curaleaf Compassionate Care VA, lists a principal address that is also used by Massachusetts-based Curaleaf Holdings, the largest U.S. cannabis company, according to Stash, a New York-based financial services firm. 

CLVA, another HSA 1 applicant, lists a Chicago principal address that is also used by Cresco Labs, which Stash ranks as the sixth largest U.S. cannabis company. Another application, Trulieve Virginia, shares an address with Tallahassee, Florida-based Trulieve Cannabis, which Stash lists as the fourth largest U.S. cannabis company. 

Pure Virginia, a company connected to Pure Shenandoah, an Elkton-based, family-run CBD and hemp products business is also included on the list. Pure Virginia CEO Tanner Johnson said 40 applicants was on the higher end of what he’d expected, but he’s still optimistic about the chance of his family’s business being selected. 

“To us, it didn’t really come down to the competition we were against but how good of an application we could put in, and I think that we put in a really, really good one,” he said. “So, if they want a company from Virginia for Virginians, then it’s going to be hard to pick anyone besides us.”

Mike Tabor, CEO of Integra Vertical in Albemarle County, got his start in medical cannabis two decades ago when a friend was diagnosed with cancer. “I started growing medicine for him, and it all just kind of ballooned from there,” he said. Greenwood-based Jackpot 777 Farms, the company behind Integra Vertical, currently produces hemp flower and CBD-infused products.

“When the opportunity came up and Virginia decided to put HSA 1 up for application, it seemed like an opportune time to make the shift into cannabis,” Tabor said. “I think [that is] a lot of people’s long-term goal in the hemp business anyway.”

The state Cannabis Control Authority plans to name the selected applicant at the end of June, according to Preiss.

Virginia is divided into five health service areas, or HSAs, for regulating medical marijuana.

In September 2018, the Virginia Board of Pharmacy issued five regional pharmaceutical processor licenses for medical cannabis dispensaries.

Dharma Pharmaceuticals opened Virginia’s first dispensary in Bristol in 2020, with three other Virginia HSAs following. 

The processor initially given a conditional permit for HSA 1 was PharmaCann Virginia, originally a subsidiary of Illinois-based PharmaCann. However, that permit was revoked in 2020 after the company failed to build a facility by the December 2019 deadline.

PharmaCann Virginia filed suit against the Virginia Board of Pharmacy in Henrico County Circuit Court in September 2020. New applications for conditional permits for pharmaceutical processors in HSA 1 were put on hold during litigation. 

In April 2023, Virginia’s Court of Appeals agreed with the circuit court, which rejected PharmaCann Virginia’s argument that the Board of Pharmacy treated it differently than the four other pharmaceutical processors in the state.

The current landscape

Virginia currently has four pharmaceutical processors of medical marijuana owned by three out-of-state companies. 

Maryland-based Green Leaf Medical was selected to serve patients in HSA IV, which includes Richmond, while New York-based Columbia Care was tapped to serve HSA V, which includes the Hampton Roads area. 

In 2021, Columbia Care bought Green Leaf Medical for $240 million. Columbia Care, which rebranded as the Cannabist Co. in September 2023, has operations in 15 states. It had more than $511 million in revenue in 2023 and reported that Virginia operations made up $16.5% of that number. 

Abingdon-based Dharma Pharmaceuticals received the processing license for HSA III, which encompasses Southwest Virginia. Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries purchased Dharma Pharmaceuticals in 2021, reportedly paying about $80 million in cash and stocks. With operations in 14 states, Green Thumb Industries reported a revenue of $1.05 billion in 2023.

Alexandria-based Dalitso received the permit to operate in Health Service Area II, which includes Northern Virginia. In December 2020, Florida-based Jushi Holdings announced it had acquired the 100% of the issued and outstanding equity of Dalitso. In 2019, it reported having paid about $16 million for 62% of the company. 

Jushi had a total revenue of $269.4 million in 2023. A spokesperson for Jushi declined to disclose state-by-state revenues. 

Messages to Green Thumb Industries asking what percentage of their total revenue came from Virginia operations were not immediately returned. 

The Cannabist Co. operates 10 dispensaries in Virginia, while Jushi and Green Thumb Industries both operate six each.

Tabor said he’d like to see the last service area go to a Virginia-owned company and “have some of the revenue directly contribute back into our local economy.”

The CCA contracted with Massachusetts-based Cannabis Public Policy Consulting to complete a report on Virginia’s medical marijuana program, which was released in November 2023. A key finding of the report was that Virginia does not have a track-and-trace system, which allows states to track cannabis from the moment a seed is planted to when a retail sale is made. 

In 2022, there were 1,846,313 medical cannabis “dispensations” reported to the Prescription Monitoring Program, according to a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Health Professions. In 2023, there were 3,356,376 medical cannabis dispensations in the commonwealth.

The CCA has issued a request for proposals for a seed-to-sale tracking system that’s due May 12, with an expedited six-month implementation timeline.

“Once we have seed-to-sale tracking software in place, we will track medical marijuana sales,” Preiss wrote in an email Tuesday.