BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) – A Cape Cod doctor who killed her husband after years of physical and mental abuse has asked the state to reinstate her medical license, saying Thursday that she is eager to return to her practice.

Prosecutors dropped a murder charge against Ann Gryboski last week, after a Barnstable County grand jury declined to indict her for the April 8 slaying of her husband of more than 20 years, Patrick Lancaster.

Gryboski, a 51-year-old internist who worked in a Yarmouth practice, voluntarily surrendered her medical license after being charged with her husband’s murder. Her attorney, Kevin Reddington, said they are working with the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine to get her license back.

He said it was unclear when a decision would be made.

Gryboski, reading from a prepared statement in Reddington’s Brockton office in her first public comments since the charges against her were dropped, said neither her family’s wealth nor her position as a prominent physician helped her escape domestic violence.

“Understanding the issues and circumstances of domestic abuse is not an easy matter. Once in an abusive relationship, no one can simply just leave,” she said. “Fortunately most do not need to defend themselves and their family in the manner that I had to.”

Gryboski said she tried to help her husband, who got counseling several years ago and made some “positive changes” for a while. But Gryboski said he quit the counseling and she could not force him to return.

“Domestic abuse, domestic violence cannot be stopped unless society and the abuser recognize that it is not the responsibility of the victim to make the change,” she said. “There is no simple fix.”

Gryboski told police she shot her husband, a builder and charter boat owner, in their home after she attempted to intervene in an argument between him and one of their adult sons, who had confronted his father about his mother’s black eye and swollen face.

She told police that the night before the killing, her husband had repeatedly punched her as she drove with their 2-year-old grandson in the back seat.

Reddington said that Gryboski and Lancaster started dating while they were in high school. They got married, had two chldren and “obviously were in love with each other.”

Over the years, Lancaster became domineering, verbally and physically abusive, Reddington said. Reddington said she kept the abuse by her husband secret from most of her friends and her patients. But he said some people who had noticed bruises on Gryboski testified before the grand jury, as did a dentist who had taken photographs of fractured teeth she had received at the hands of her husband.

AP-ES-08-23-07 1732EDT

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