Dr. Mark Camel, who is affiliated with Greenwich Hospital, discovered his error during spinal surgery on Oct. 27, 2011 and then operated on the correct disc.  State investigators found that Camel admitted that he had written down the wrong spinal location during a pre-operative visit and neither he nor the patient noticed the error when signing consent forms, records indicated.

When Camel was reviewing an MRI and preparing to close the patient, he noticed his mistake.  Camel immediately reported his error and has put in place protocols to be sure such an error never happens again, records show.

It was the second time in two months that the board had taken up “wrong site” incidents at Greenwich Hospital. In May, it declined to discipline Dr. Paul Sygall for administering a nerve block to the wrong arm of a patient in 2010 who was about to undergo wrist arthroscopy.

Board members on Tuesday asked staff members from the state Department of Public Health to provide them with information on what Greenwich Hospital is doing to prevent such incidents. State records in the Camel case said the hospital audited his procedures and was satisfied that he had taken steps to make sure such a mistake would not happen again.

The board approved a consent order that reprimanded and fined Dr. Gregory Azia, a New London vascular surgeon, $7,000 for lapses in care. In 2009, the board had fined him $2,000 for not having adequate malpractice insurance.

After receiving a complaint in March 2012 about unsanitary conditions at Azia’s office, state investigators found that Azia did not ensure that medications were properly labeled and stored and that he used equipment and instruments that were not properly sterilized or discarded, state records show.

Records show Azia also improperly delegated to medical assistants the preparation of intravenous solutions for treating varicose veins.

By this spring, a consultant concluded that that Azia’s office was clean and that he had taken steps to control infections. Azia’s lawyer, Hilary Fisher Nelson, told the board Tuesday that Azia has changed his practices and is willing to hold sessions to educate other doctors on infection control.

In other business, the board also reprimanded and fined Dr. Richard Ochrym of Salisbury $2,000 for mishandling drugs. Ochrym’s entire practice consists of house calls and visits to boarding schools, which he advertises through the web site doctordoeshousecalls.com.

In 2012, the state Department of Consumer Protection found that Ochrym failed to properly store, secure and document his supply of controlled substances, records show. Twice, he took drugs prescribed by another practitioner out of a home when patients or relatives asked him to, DPH staff attorney David Tilles told the board.

Records also show that Ochrym once dispensed a diet pill to his wife without proper documentation.

Tilles said there was no evidence that Ochrym had provided improper care to patients.

When reached after the meeting, Ochrym said he was not aware he could not take pills from patients and that he only prescribed the drug to his wife once.

Though he’s been a doctor for 30 years, he said he started the house call practice out of his home six years ago to provide affordable, convenient care to patients. He said he signed the consent order to put the issue behind him.

“I am an honest guy. I do everything by the book,’’ he said. “I just feel I got railroaded” by DPH.

Under the consent order, his license will be on probation until he can show he has completed coursework in the next six months on the proper securing, transporting and documentation of drugs.

On Tuesday, the board declined to hold a hearing on whether to reinstate the medical license of Dr. Andrew Solomon of Fort Myers, Fla.

In May 2002, Connecticut had revoked Solomon’s license based on 10 cases of “negligent care and misconduct” in New York, where his license had also been revoked. In his letter seeking a new hearing in Connecticut, Solomon wrote that he had been falsely accused and blamed New York officials for holding an “inquisition” against him, rather than an investigation.

A DPH lawyer advised the Connecticut board to reject Solomon’s request for a hearing.

Tuesday was the first medical examining board meeting chaired by Kathryn Emmett, a prominent Stamford lawyer and former Superior Court judge. A Democrat who served on the transition team of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Emmett was recently appointed by Malloy to replace the longtime chairperson, Anne C. Doremus, a Manchester Republican. Doremus remains on the board as a member.

Though a board hearing panel had concluded that the state had proven misconduct on the part of Dr. Paul Sygall, the board voted to change the word “misconduct” to “error” and imposed no disciplinary action.

State records show the hearing panel considered Sygall’s “stellar professional record” in which he had performed 10,000 procedures and his credible testimony at a hearing and concluded that he posed to “no threat to public health and safety.”

DPH records showed the error occurred because a nurse had changed equipment to the opposite side of the patient while Sygall was out of the room. Sygall administered the nerve block on the wrong side, noticed the error right away, stopped the procedure and kept the patient overnight for observation, DPH records show.

In recent years, the board has fined or reprimanded other physicians for similar errors.  For example, in June 2011, the board approved a consent order fining Dr. David Heimbinder of Glastonbury $5,000 for administering a nerve block in the wrong shoulder of a patient in 2009.

While the public may view that as inconsistent, chairwoman Anne C. Doremus said, the board has to weigh the evidence in each case separately. In some cases, physicians such as Heimbinder have agreed to a fine through a consent order that is negotiated with DPH while Sygall chose the hearing route, she said.

“In my 12 years on the board, we have generally considered critically what the hearing panels have concluded,’’ she said. “I think the process is fair.”

In other business, the board imposed a six-month probation on Dr. David Wilterdink, who has a family medicine practice in Danielson, for giving a patient early refills for Ativan and Fioricet without an adequate review of the patient’s medical record or without adequate record-keeping.

Ativan is prescribed for anxiety and Fioricet is used to treat tension headaches. Wilterdink’s patient, who was also his employee, was being treated for chronic headaches, the consent order accepted by the board states.

Under the order, Wilterdink agreed to take course work in prescribing practices and documentation and to have a consultant monitor his practice during the probation.

The board also declined to revisit a 1997 ruling governing the use of lasers for hair removal. James J. Schultz, a New Britain lawyer representing Iyad “Ed” Shaham, owner of Laser55 in West Hartford, had asked for a new ruling because he said technology has evolved in the past 16 years to allow the use of low-level, diffuse laser treatment for fat reduction.

Laser55 uses that treatment, which Schultz wrote is “less extreme and risky” to patients than other procedures. The “cold laser” warms fat cells by three to five degrees, “tricking” them into acting as if they had been warmed through exercise such as jogging, Schultz said.

Dr. Henry Jacobs, a medical board member, said there have been no studies that conclude that using lasers to reduce fat works, but he added that it wasn’t the medical board’s job to step in at Shaham’s request.

“This is a scientific device that no one has concluded does much of anything,’’ he said. “I don’t think this is medicine.”