Thu, Mar 27, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Gov. Jim Gibbons has backed off a key reason he gave for asking three members of the state’s medical board to resign, with his office acknowledging Wednesday that the board would not be shorthanded when it reviews the cases of doctors tied to the hepatitis C scare.

Gibbons, however, is not backing off his call for the president of the Board of Medical Examiners and two other board members to resign because of their personal or business associations with the owner of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, Dr. Dipak Desai. Unsafe medical practices — reuse of syringes and single-dose medication vials — at the Endoscopy Center led to at least six cases of hepatitis C and calls for 40,000 other patients to be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.

In interviews this week, Gibbons said the board members’ recusals weren’t sufficient because the board would shrink from nine members to six.

“There’s a reason most boards have an odd number of people,” Gibbons said Tuesday after the dedication of a federal building in North Las Vegas. “There could be a time there are votes that are three to three. That’s why we need full members without conflicts.”

The governor’s staff acknowledged Wednesday that temporary board members could be appointed to replace the permanent members who have potential conflicts.

Gibbons has called on medical board President Dr. Javaid Anwar and board members Dr. S. Daniel McBride and Dr. Sohail U. Anjum to resign because of their connections to Desai. All three already had recused themselves from the process related to Desai, but have refused to step down.

Gibbons’ spokesman, Ben Kieckhefer, said the governor’s belief that the medical board would be reduced in size unless the three were permanently replaced stemmed from an “initial discrepancy” between the governor’s office and the attorney general’s office over whether temporary board members can be appointed.

The attorney general’s office and the medical board staff have maintained from the start that the governor could pick temporary replacements for the recused members, a point underlined last week by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. Gibbons’ office, however, questioned whether he had that authority, thereby raising an issue that figured into the governor’s push for the three members’ resignations.

That has since been resolved, Kieckhefer said. “Both staffs now believe the governor has the authority to appoint temporary members.”

Regardless, Kieckhefer said, Gibbons stands by his call for the three members to resign. Although new permanent members and temporary members both would have learning curves, permanent members would be able to gain experience while hearing other board business, he said.

“There would be a much broader landscape available for what the board does,” Kieckhefer said. He said medical board hearings on doctors associated with the Endoscopy Center could last for a year or longer.

Tony Clark, Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners’ executive director, said he submitted the names of 14 Northern Nevada doctors to Gibbons’ office March 14 when he notified the governor’s staff that the three doctors planned to recuse themselves. Two days later Gibbons called for their resignations.

State law specifies that if a member of an agency cannot hear a matter, the appointing authority — in this case the governor — can appoint someone else to do it.