COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — His dental license was suspended in Michigan and Illinois after criminal convictions.
Arizona suspended his license after a patient died in 2021.
Yet Thomas Endicott is still a licensed dentist in Utah. Endicott declined to speak when FOX 13 visited him at a clinic in Cottonwood Heights.
Business records list him as the clinic’s principal owner. And Endicott is the only dentist listed on the clinic’s website. How Endicott received and thus far kept his license is a lesson in the laws governing health professionals in Utah.
“States are allowed to license professionals, and they can have higher or lower standards” than other states, said Teneille Brown, director of the Center for Law and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Utah's law school.
“So, it is the case that you can have a dentist that might be considered too unsafe to practice in Arizona, but not too unsafe to practice in Utah,” Brown said. FOX 13’s Scripps News partners, ABC 15 in Phoenix, began investigating Endicott after the death of the 72-year-old patient to whom Endicott had given anesthesia.
But ABC 15 discovered Endicott’s history with regulators goes back to 2005, when he was convicted in Michigan for healthcare fraud and drug distribution. Also that year, Endicott pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sex offense when a female employee said he pinched her on the butt.
Now he’s a registered sex offender because of that charge.
Endicott lost his dental license in Michigan and Illinois, where he was also licensed, because of those criminal convictions.
Then in 2012, Endicott sought a license in Arizona.
“I've paid all my debts to society,” Endicott told the Arizona State Board of Dental Examiners, according to audio of the hearing, “And I've lived out here and I'd like to start a new life and begin again."
The board granted him a license in Arizona.
Then in 2016, Endicott received a license in Utah. Records show he informed the Utah Division of Professional Licensing, or DOPL, about his criminal history and suspensions in the Midwest. A representative of DOPL declined to go on camera, but pointed to a Utah statute. In short, it says DOPL considers criminal histories on a case-by-case basis and “the applicant’s or licensee’s current circumstances.”
And nothing requires DOPL to deny or suspend a license just because someone has lost it in another state. Once you have a license in Utah, you don’t even need to tell DOPL if you’ve been suspended in another state.
That’s why DOPL, a spokeswoman for the agency said, didn’t know about Endicott’s suspension in Arizona.
In a 2022 meeting of the Arizona State Board of Dental Examiners, Endicott’s attorney, David Williams, called the patient's death — from what documents have described as a cardiac episode — “an unfortunate event.”
“It’s our position,” Williams said, “Dr. Endicott appropriately managed the patient’s care and treatment as he tried to walk through an emergent situation.”
Williams did not return FOX 13 emails seeking comment.
An administrative hearing to consider making Endicott’s Arizona suspension permanent is scheduled for Dec. 29, ABC 15 reported.
DOPL will post online some information about the discipline it issues professionals, but Endicott has never been disciplined in Utah. DOPL doesn’t post a license holder’s history with other states.
Brown doesn’t know the answer is for DOPL or its counterparts in other states to post a licensee’s entire history online. Some professionals are worthy of a second chance, she said.
“But if there is some kind of good cause shown or some kind of risk to the public,” Brown said, “there should be a way for groups to get access.”
The DOPL spokeswoman said, after inquiries from FOX 13, it would investigate the death of Endicott’s patient in Arizona to determine whether it violated Utah standards of care.