from a Jun 12, 2000 article about the trial...

The government's star witness was Dr. Neil Ratner, Lauersen's former anesthesiologist, who testified to a deliberate office policy of falsifying insurance forms. The prosecution knew Ratner would be a shaky witness, so the attorneys started the questioning by having him admit to dodging the draft, to being unable to get into an American med school, to dealing drugs, and to being "pretty stoned a lot of the time I was giving anesthesia," once accidentally injecting himself with a paralyzing agent on the job. But to Lauersen, Ratner was like a patient, a person he could make well. "I took Ratner when nobody else would," he says. "I made him a good person."

link:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/health/features/3...