Editorial: Shifting all meetings to Reno is bad policy

Friday, Nov. 30, 2001 | 9:21 a.m.

It has been the practice of the state Board of Medical Examiners to alternate its monthly meetings between Reno and Las Vegas, hearings that can involve discipline against doctors and the drafting of new regulations. That rotation has served Nevada well, especially since there are more than 400 miles that separate the state's two largest metropolitan areas. But as the Sun's Emily Richmond reported Wednesday, there no longer will be meetings in Las Vegas.

The board hasn't stated publicly why it has chosen to stop convening in Southern Nevada, but Northern Nevadans who are members of other state boards have been known to grouse about having to travel to Las Vegas. While this may pose a hassle of sorts for officials located in the Reno-Carson City area, their jobs aren't about convenience, they're about serving the public. Besides, making a trip to Las Vegas just six times every year is hardly a hardship. It also is mind boggling that the meetings would be held only in Northern Nevada since more than two-thirds of the state's population resides in Southern Nevada.

Dr. Marjorie L. Uhalde, president of the Nevada State Medical Association, expressed her concerns about the elimination of the Las Vegas meetings in a letter to Dr. Cheryl Hug-English, president of the Board of Medical Examiners. But no one from the board responded to Uhalde's letter, according to Larry Matheis, executive director of the state medical association.

The Board of Medical Examiners should come to its senses and go back to the policy of rotating meetings between north and south -- otherwise the public will be left out in the dark about the workings of this important board.