The state medical board has required close monitoring of Dr. Norman Chou, an emergency room doctor at Kent Hospital, after finding deficiencies in his care of three patients, including a 31-year-old man who died.

The Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline alleges that in three incidents Chou was deficient “in the areas of recognition and interpretation of abnormal test results, clinical diagnosis, recruitment of hospital resources, and discharge planning.” Two incidents happened at Roger Williams Hospital in 2002 and 2003, and one more recently at Kent Hospital, where Chou took a job in 2003.

In a consent order that he signed, Chou, 36, accepts the board’s sanction of two years probation and supervision by another doctor, but he does not admit to the finding that his care was deficient.

The consent order (a negotiated resolution of the case, like a plea bargain) provides no other information about the three cases. Dr. Robert S. Crausman, the board’s chief administrative officer, declined to elaborate except to say that the first incident involved “failure to appreciate a subtle reading” on an electrocardiogram, and that Chou had only a “minor role” in the third incident. He would not discuss the second incident.

But documents in a malpractice suit in Superior Court, Providence, indicate that Chou was involved in the care of a 31-year-old Providence man who died at Roger Williams Medical Center on Jan. 4, 2003. Chou, the hospital and a nurse are accused of negligence in the suit, which alleges that the man, Richard Gamelin Jr., did not receive timely, appropriate care and adequate monitoring.

Gamelin came to the emergency room by ambulance after two days of vomiting and diarrhea. He died about 10 hours later; the medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was “cardiorespiratory failure due to pneumonia with a clinical history of sepsis [severe infection].”

A Health Department investigation of the hospital, which was included in the court files, found several flaws in the care provided, including an apparent failure to quickly treat an abnormal acidity in the man’s body fluids that led to circulatory collapse, and slow responses to other laboratory findings.

In a letter responding to the Health Department report, which was also in the court records, Chou said that the problems that led to Gamelin’s death had started days before he came to the hospital and were probably unstoppable. He also said he was the only attending physician in a busy emergency department.

Chou’s lawyer, David W. Carroll, said yesterday: “It is our firm conviction that the doctor acted within the standard of care and is not responsible for the death of the patient. We will certainly go to trial on the matter because we’re convinced that he’s a good, qualified doctor who should not have been sued.”

Asked about the case, Roger Williams Medical Center provided a brief statement saying that it had “submitted a corrective action plan to the Department of Health” and that “the well-being and safety of patients is the top priority” of the hospital’s caregivers.

Crausman, the medical board’s administrator, said that Chou, who attended Brown Medical School and served his residency at Carney Hospital, in Boston, and the Detroit Medical Center, had only recently completed his medical training when the problems occurred.

“He is now an employed physician at Kent working very closely in a mentorship program, and being supervised,” Crausman said. The supervision started even before the consent order, and the board is “getting very frequent feedback”; there have been no further problems, he said.

“It was very important to the board that this person be in that mentorship program if he continues to practice,” Crausman said. “The board felt it was the appropriate sanction and would also remediate the issue. That acts to protect the public best, while also weighing in the balance that this is a young physician who has the potential to do a lot of good.”