PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine doctor has been placed on probation by the state agency that licenses physicians for lying to the Portland hospital where she worked about her work at another hospital.
Dr. Geeta Godara was officially reprimanded “for engaging in fraud, deceit and unprofessional conduct” and placed on supervised probation for one year, according to an agreement signed by Godara and released by the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine on Oct. 11.
Godara now works at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick. During her probation, she will receive workplace monitoring and continue mental health counseling, the agreement states.
In May 2014, Godara was placed on probation by Maine Medical Center, where she was a cardiology fellow, for lying about why she’d missed an event required as part of the fellowship, the agreement states. A condition of this probation was that she could not moonlight doing other health care work.
In September 2015, Godara lied to the hospital’s program director about per diem work she was doing at the Central Maine Medical Center, according to the agreement. She was fired from Maine Med later that month.
But an inquiry by the Brunswick hospital went on to find that “it was highly probable that Dr. Godara created three fictitious letters on [Central Maine Medical Center] letterhead concerning her work [there] and misrepresented the truth when speaking with staff,” the agreement states.
Godara took responsibility for what she called “inexcusable misconduct” in a letter to the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine responding to the official complaint, the agreement states. In the letter, the doctor said she took a course in ethics and professionalism to ensure the “aberrational behavior of dishonest never reoccurs.”
A spokesman for Mid Coast Hospital said the medical center is aware of Godara’s probation.
“We are comfortable with the supervision requirements imposed by Dr. Godara’s consent agreement, including mentorship and monitoring,” said spokesman Steve Trockman.