An Augusta man who was shot and injured last week by New York State Police has been confirmed to be Dr. Paul G. Gosselin, whose license to practice medicine was most recently suspended in 2021.
It is not yet known why Gosselin, 63, traveled more than 400 miles from Augusta to Barryville, a hamlet on the Delaware River in upstate New York. The Augusta Police Department confirmed Wednesday that Gosselin, an osteopathic doctor, had been listed as a missing person in a national law enforcement database.
Gosselin was shot after he began accelerating in his vehicle toward a constable from the nearby town of Lumberland, New York, according to an announcement issued Wednesday by the New York State Police.
Troopers had responded to Barryville following the report of a suspicious person inside a vehicle outside a business, according to the statement for the state police. Gosselin fled to another business on Route 97, stepped out of his vehicle and then got back into it. He had told troopers he had a gun and would shoot them.
In the announcement to the news media, officials said Gosselin was in “stable” condition.
Attempts to confirm that information or get an updated condition on Gosselin since the shooting have been unsuccessful.
On Monday, Trooper Steven Nevel, the public information officer for Troop F of the New York State Police, confirmed Gosselin had yet to be booked into jail.
“I don’t see where he’s been released,” Nevel said. “He’s still in the hospital.”
Gosselin has a disciplinary record that extends back 25 years, according to reports.
In 1999, he was found to have responded to emergency calls after consuming alcohol and when he was not the on-call physician.
In 2001, he impersonated his physician assistant and called two pharmacies in an attempt to obtain prescriptions for himself.
In 2011, the board determined Gosselin had violated professional standards by having a romantic relationship with a woman who was a patient.
In 2013, Gosselin was charged with operating under the influence after driving erratically in Fairfield and causing two cars to crash, before he drove into a ditch and left the scene. Although he had no alcohol in his system, Gosselin displayed signs of impairment, and a urine sample ordered by Fairfield police showed multiple narcotics in his system, including morphine, according to the board.
In 2014, Gosselin was not allowed to practice medicine from July 18 to Oct. 15.
And in 2017, Gosselin was found to have violated a probationary agreement. His medical license was suspended for a year.
Gosselin’s most recent suspension came in November 2021 and lasted seven months. The state board suspended Gosselin’s license because it found he had issued vaccine exemption letters to patients he neither saw nor examined and for which he did not keep records. Gosselin also failed to obtain their medical records, consult with their primary care providers or consider guidance published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the board determined.
Gosselin had testified he did not keep records on those who sought vaccine exemption letters, never solicited a medical history and did not require or seek medical records corroborating their assertions of past ailments that made vaccination risky or inadvisable.
Gosselin’s lawyer, F. Ron Jenkins, had argued Gosselin was not required to take those steps because the people seeking letters were not his patients. Jenkins also argued at the time that the board unfairly targeted Gosselin because the doctor resisted accepting the broader medical community’s conclusions about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations.
Following the end of that suspension, about two years ago, Gosselin was to be on probation for a year.
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