Board revokes Cape doctor's right to renew license

A Cape Cod doctor today lost her right to renew her expired medical license when a state agency ruled she was continuing to practice medicine without a license.

Dr. Lorraine K. Hurley (left), who graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in 1997, was disciplined by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine based in part on an undercover investigator's visit to Hurley's Brewster office.

A woman working for the board posed as a patient seeking alternative healthcare options, according to the board's decision. Hurley told the incognito investigator she was licensed as a family practitioner but was no longer working in a traditional medical model, seeing patients in a consultation format and not prescribing medications, board documents say.

Hurley today challenged the board's standing in the case and said no evidence was produced against her.

"I voluntarily rescinded my license so they have no jurisdiction over me," she said in an interview. "The Board of Registration tried to summons me to a hearing without citing a complaint or a citation. They produced no legitimate reason for me to answer any inquiry."

Hurley stopped communicating with the board after declining to appear at the hearing last November, which the board called "blatant disregard" of the hearing process.

Hurley signed an agreement not to practice medicine in 2003 "for personal reasons," she said, and her license expired three years later. She contends that she is still entitled to call herself a doctor.

"I am a physician and MD is a medical degree. It's a degree conferred upon you by a university," she said.

The board cited a newsletter written by Hurley promoting a hyperbaric chamber and other alternative therapies to treat illnesses from Lyme disease to autism. On the web site Health for Life, Hurley's biography explains why she left her practice.

"Eventually frustrated beyond reconciliation with the constraints and limits imposed on and by the daily practice of medicine, Dr. Hurley left and founded Health for Life," says the site, described as a "health and self-healing consultation and education service."

Hurley said she hasn't written the newsletter in over a year and the web site is not up to date. She is pursuing other business opportunities, she said.