Doctor in Crash May Lose License : Medicine: State officials say they will seek suspension of medical certificate of physician in accident fatal to couple.

The state’s medical licensing board will seek to suspend the license of Dr. Ronald Allen, the Laguna Beach doctor charged with two counts of murder as a result of an automobile crash that claimed the lives of a Mission Viejo couple and left their orphaned 11-year-old daughter in critical condition, officials said Monday.

The doctor, who had a previous history of drunk driving, is accused of being under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the fatal accident.

Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the California Medical Board, said board investigators recommended an immediate temporary suspension of the doctor’s license, after reviewing a report they received Monday from an outside consultant.

The consultant had just completed a review of records subpoenaed last week from South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, where Allen formerly practiced. Cohen refused to describe the nature of the records or their content.

She said that “within the next day or so” the board will send a report to the state attorney general’s office with a request that Allen’s medical license be immediately suspended for 30 days, either by action of an administrative law judge or Orange County Superior Court.

The 30-day suspension would effectively forbid Allen to practice medicine while the board continues its investigation, which could lead to a permanent revocation of his medical license. Allen, 31, was being held without bail at Orange County Jail in Santa Ana.

“We don’t want Dr. Allen to continue practicing medicine under any circumstance, even in jail,” Cohen said.

State medical board officials have previously acknowledged that they failed to act promptly to investigate Allen’s fitness to practice medicine, when they received a report in early June that Allen’s medical privileges had been suspended at South Coast Medical Center after his June 1 arrest on charges of hit and run, driving under the influence of alcohol and resisting arrest.

Almost six weeks later, while the report languished on a desk in Sacramento, Allen was involved in a head-on collision that killed Mark and Noreen Minzey and critically injured their daughter Karie, who is slowly recovering.

The state medical board, using the threat of license revocation, can often force doctors with substance abuse problems to enroll in treatment programs. Board officials have acknowledged that swifter action on their part might have prompted Allen to seek treatment.