A panel of Montana state medical board members on Friday voted unanimously to revoke the medical license of Dr. Thomas Weiner, the former Helena cancer doctor who has been accused of prescribing unnecessary treatments and harming patients.
On Friday, four members of the board’s adjudication panel accepted the findings of board investigators that Weiner “violated” rules of professional conduct and prohibited him from practicing medicine in Montana ever again.
Those findings cited Weiner’s improper care of seven unnamed patients, including one who board attorneys said had not been diagnosed with cancer, but died from toxicity related to chemotherapy treatments. Another, the investigation found, stayed in Weiner’s care for years and received opioid prescriptions, despite not having a cancer diagnosis.
“Dr. Weiner is permanently prohibited from practicing medicine in Montana and agrees he will not seek licensure as a physician in Montana in the future,” the state licensing board’s legal counsel Jennifer Stallkamp told panel members during the Friday meeting, explaining the terms of the agreement state attorneys had reached with Weiner. Montana Free Press reviewed an audio recording of the proceeding posted on the Board of Medical Examiners website on Friday.
Stallkamp added that Weiner “disputes several of the allegations against him and the findings of fact.” But, she continued, the doctor “agrees the board has sufficient evidence to enter findings against him.”
The attorney said that Weiner had informed licensing attorneys that he “does not intend to practice medicine again in Montana. Therefore, he has agreed to surrender his Montana physician license.” Stallkamp did not say whether the board’s license revocation would prohibit Weiner from practicing in other states.
Weiner did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the board’s investigation or the panel’s decision. The doctor and his wife, Donna Weiner, publicly acknowledged in March that they planned to sell their house in Helena, citing the desire to move closer to family.
The Friday action came less than a year after the medical board renewed Weiner’s license for a two-year term. That decision sparked confusion and frustration, particularly among former patients who had accused the doctor of improper medical care.
St. Peter’s Health in Helena, the city’s primary health care system, fired Weiner in 2020 after the hospital identified a series of concerning incidents in patient care. Among those, the hospital publicly said it was aware of “harm that was caused to patients by receiving treatments, including chemotherapy, that were not clinically indicated or necessary; failure to meet state and federal laws associated with the prescribing of narcotics; failure to refer patients to other specialists for appropriate treatments; and failure to meet requirements associated with clinical documentation.”
In his more than two decades as Helena’s primary oncologist, Weiner had become beloved by many. Despite the hospital’s decision, he received widespread support from community members who lauded him as a talented physician and praised his diligent care of cancer patients from around the region. “WE STAND WITH DR. TOM WEINER” signs still hang in front yards and home windows around town.
Weiner sued the hospital over his termination, a case he ultimately lost. In August of 2024, St. Peter’s announced it would pay an $11 million settlement to the federal government related to Weiner’s and the hospital’s billing practices.
More details about Weiner’s alleged medical misconduct emerged in December 2024, when the national news outlet ProPublica published an extensive investigation into a string of suspicious deaths in Weiner’s caseload that contributed to his dismissal. The article detailed how Weiner managed, for years, to evade official repercussions, despite complaints, due in part to the fact that his services drove hospital revenue.
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‘Eat What You Kill’
Hailed as a savior upon his arrival in Helena, Dr. Thomas C. Weiner became a favorite of patients and his hospital’s highest earner. As the myth surrounding the high-profile oncologist grew, so did the trail of patient harm and suspicious deaths.
In response to that reporting, the Montana Department of Justice opened a criminal probe into the doctor’s practices. No charges have been filed. However, to the dismay of several former patients and the vindication of others, the state licensing board in February reapproved Weiner’s ability to practice and prescribe medications.
Officials with the Department of Labor and Industry, the state agency that oversees medical licensing, did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening about the panel’s decision to revoke Weiner’s license. The agency also did not answer questions about when the department began investigating Weiner’s patient care practices. ProPublica and Montana Free Press reported in March that St. Peter’s had given the state medical board more than 100,000 pages of records in 2021 related to Weiner’s care, an action that could have opened Weiner up to a licensure investigation.
The Walt Sullivan Building, housing the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, in Helena on Jan. 26, 2023. Credit: Samuel Wilson / Bozeman Daily Chronicle
During the Friday panel hearing, Stallkamp read through a list of accounts related to seven specific former patients, which medical board attorneys cited as evidence of substandard care.
The detailed summaries described patient illnesses, prescriptions and treatment decisions, including instances in which Weiner did not review standard diagnostic testing before proceeding with medical intervention. Another account found that Weiner failed to record information about “medications prescribed, side effects, reasons for treatment, assessments, or plans for pain management” for a patient who was in his care for seven years and received opioid prescriptions despite never receiving a cancer diagnosis.
One of the patients described in the hearing matched the profile of Scot Warwick, a Helena resident who died from toxicity related to chemotherapy treatment. Weiner prescribed the treatment even though diagnostic testing had not confirmed Warwick had cancer. In the hearing, Stallkamp identified that patient as Patient 1.
“Patient 1 was treated with chemotherapy and immunotherapy from 2014 until September of 2020. In April of 2020, Dr. Weiner ordered another biopsy for molecular testing of Patient 1’s left lung, which revealed fibrosis and granulomatous disease. No malignancy was detected,” Stallkamp summarized. “Patient 1 was then treated with three cycles of gemcitabine, which is a chemotherapy drug, from May of 2020 until September of 2020. Patient 1 subsequently died of respiratory failure in September 2020 due to gemcitabine-associated pulmonary toxicity.”
Reached by phone on Friday evening, Warwick’s widow, Lisa Warwick, said the description of the case matched that of her deceased husband. Warwick said she was also surprised by the panel’s decision, having not known whether the board was actively investigating her husband’s death.
She said she was relieved to hear that Weiner will no longer be able to practice medicine in Montana.
“I think on some level it does bring some justice, maybe a little bit of justice, to the victims and their families, just knowing that he won’t be able to do that anymore,” Warwick said.
