So now these three can keep on protecting unfit doctors until the legislature takes action to restore the integrity of healthcare regulation in Nevada. For a look at the criminals and incompetents that the board has been sheltering from discipline, see http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME.... .

Note that the current med board goes easy on dangerous doctors as a matter of policy, choosing not to take any real disciplinary action against those who have killed or injured patients, but ordering them to take continuing medical education courses. Thus we still need to find out if hanging-on-by-his-teeth McBride ordered any doctors to sign up and pay for any of the CME courses offered by Nevada Mutual Insurance while he served both as company chairman and as a member of the med board's disciplinary committee. And isn't anyone curious about what med board president Anwar found when his company evaluated Desai's clinic last year?

The Nevada Medical Board members should resign, not only because their ties to Desai have rendered them unable to address the state's health crisis, but because their history of incompetence has earned the Board its current ranking as one of the 5 worst medical boards in the country. Gibbons' latest reversal makes it even more clear that the legislature must step in to fix the Board's glaring inability to protect public safety. To learn more about the toll of death and injury brought about by the Board's long-term failure to discipline dangerous doctors, vist http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME.... , an academic web page on the astonishing level of medical misconduct in NV.

Clearly, anyone who has been following this story knows that the med board members should go, not merely because their ties to Desai have made it impossible for them to address the worst health crisis that the state has ever seen, but also because the med board's history of incompetence provides glaring evidence that smarter and more effective members are urgently needed to restore public confidence in the medical establishment.

Tony Clark and his colleagues' constant excuse for protecting unfit physicians is that NV has such a shortage of doctors that it can't afford to lose any, no matter, apparently, how many patients are killed or injured as a result.

Just look at a recently updated version of http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME....

Exactly how bad does the situation have to get before the need to place competent people in charge of supervising physicians takes priority over bashing Gibbons? Certainly, given his record, there'll be plenty of reasons to go after him later, but now the main focus should be creating a medical board that can properly protect public safety.

I certainly sympathize with Nevadans' unhappiness with Gibbons, but incompetence in one part of government should not excuse incompetence in another. As evidenced in the Med Board's dismal record, the people in charge of disciplining doctors should not also be involved in protecting them from malpractice claims. The death toll and rate of injury caused by the board's long-term refusal to reign in unfit physicians--witness the murder conviction of Dr. Harriston Bass a couple of weeks ago--is mounting (as you can see if you visit http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME....).

The question is, how many more patients need to be injured or killed before the current med board members are replaced by physicians whose first priority is to safeguard public health and safety? Surely there are doctors in Nevada whose business dealings would not encourage them to minimize malpractice, as the Med Board has done for so many years, and as former? board president Anwar recently did in defending the board's 2005 decision to remove info on malpractice from its web site.

While Gibbons is plagued with his own questionable connections, medical board member Daniel McBride and board president Anwar should resign, not only because their ties to Desai have rendered them ineffective, but because their personal business interests directly contradict their capacity to fulfill the Medical Board's mandate to place the rights of patients above the interests of the medical profession. McBride has resigned from his position as chairman of Nevada Mutual Insurance, but the public deserves to know how he handled malpractice claims against doctors insured by his company while he served on the medical board. Likewise, after he steps down from the board, Anwar should provide details of his consulting company's evaluation of Desai's clinic last year. In their business dealings, Anwar and McBride clearly put doctors first. If these conflicts of interest had nothing to do with the medical board's current ranking as one of the 5 worst medical boards in the country, then Anwar, McBride and their colleagues need to offer some other explanation for the board's long-term failure to ensure public health and safety.

Actually, the Medical Board can call an emgergency meeting and temporarily suspend a physicians' license pending a formal hearing. Although NV's Medical Board, which currently ranks among the 5 worst medical boards in the country, fails to use this option as often as it could, it has regularly issued these suspensions in response to reports that doctors have been engaged in dangerous behavior or criminal activity.

In this case, resignations are called for not only because these Board members were rendered ineffective due to their ties to Desai, but also because they had been serving despite profound conflicts of interest. For example, Daniel McBride had been serving as Chairman of a medical malpractice insurance company while he was reviewing malpractice cases for the Medical Board.

The Med Board has a long history of violating its mandate by placing the interests of doctors above the interests of patients. The agreement the Board forged with Desai to protect his record conforms to its usual pattern. Find out more by visiting http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME.... or Googling "Snake Oil Salesmen Hit Jackpot in Nevada."

The problem here is not just that so many board members have ties to Desai, it is that they have failed to recognize more glaring conflicts of interest. McBride should not have been working for a medical malpractice provider while he was reviewing malpractice cases, and Anwar should not have been running a medical consulting business while serving as med board president. Just last year, Anwar's firm, Quality Care Consulting, which he runs with former Gibbons advisor and former med board member, Ikram Khan, apprently gave Desai's clinic a clean bill of health! For info on the med board's long-term history of self-serving incompetence, visit http://faculty.uml.edu/sgallagher/NSBME.... or google "Snake Oil Salesmen Hit Jackpot in Nevada."