Medical board member asked to resign after contact with media

By Cy Ryan

Monday, Oct. 5, 2009 | 1:31 p.m.

CARSON CITY – Jean Stoess, a member of the state Board of Medical Examiners, has quit at the request of its president and executive director for talking to the press.

Stoess of Reno, who represents the public on the board, submitted her resignation Friday after Dr. Charles Held, who is president of the board, and Louis Ling, its executive director, asked for her resignation.

She is appointed by the governor and has more than two years left in her term.

Stoess said she was asked in an e-mail from Ling to resign because she leaked a confidential memo to the news media. “I don’t think I should resign but who wants to stay on a board in dealing with people like that,” she said.

Ling confirmed he and Dr. Held asked for her resignation. But he refused to give a reason.

Ling, in his e-mail asking for her resignation, said some of his correspondence with the board is routine but there are items that are confidential.

“We must be able to trust that such communications will remain in confidence,” Ling said. “By your e-mail to (Sun reporter) Cy (Ryan), you indicated that you knew you were breaching that confidence and that you had done so before. Please seriously consider resigning.”

There were no markings on the memo that it was “confidential.”

Stoess said, “I was so stunned when they asked me to resign because they couldn’t trust me anymore that I called the governor’s office (Friday) and left a message with Deanna (Lazovich), the appointments secretary, that I was going to resign because I had been asked to do so because I violated the Bureau of Medical Examiner’s policy about board members talking to the press when all info could come via Louis Ling.”

Stoess said today she talked with Lazovich, who informed her she would have to resign from the board.

Stoess said the board adopted a policy at a retreat that only Ling should talk to the news media. She said she talked with a reporter from the Las Vegas Sun about the current case involving the regulation that would have allowed medical assistants to administer flu shots.

Last Tuesday Clark County District Judge Kathleen Delaney overturned an emergency regulation that would have permitted medical assistants to give flu shots and other vaccines but prohibit them from injecting cosmetic drugs such as Botox. She ruled the board violated the state’s open meeting law.

Ling, in his memo Sept. 30, said “I have spoken to the governor’s office, and they are of the opinion that we should just abandon the medical assistant regulatory process altogether.” He said that he thinks the board “should stop pursuing a regulation that will allow medical assistants to possess or administer prescription drugs.”

A day after Ling’s “confidential” memo, Gov. Jim Gibbons issued a statement recommending that the board should ask the judge to reconsider her decision. That’s contrary to what Ling quoted the governor’s office saying initially.

Ling said Monday he and Dr. Held have not made a decision yet whether to ask the judge for reconsideration. He said there are other options such as holding a special meeting to adopting another regulation.

He said he wants to get the transcript of the court hearing before making a decision. He said he and Dr. Held could decide on further court action without a vote of the board.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said she did not know the circumstances of the regulation but she considered Stoess a good member.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said the medical board should not try to “muzzle” one of its members. She said Stoess is appointed by the governor and he is one who decides whether to ask for her resignation.

“The root of their (the medical board) problem is not talking to the press,” Leslie said, referring to other public criticism of the board in handling the regulation of doctors.

Daniel Burns, communication director for Gov. Gibbons, said only, “We will find a replacement.”