Gibbons throws good doctor under bus to score political points

I know Dr. Dan McBride. I’ve seen before-and-after photos of the disfiguring cleft palates and goiters he’s fixed when he took time off from his surgical practice to go to the Philippines to work for free, hauling his son along for the harrowing experience. I know his wife. I know his sister-in-law. They’re all good and decent people.

In the past week, I’ve seen him impugned in the media because the governor wanted his resignation.

McBride is one of three doctors Gov. Jim Gibbons asked to resign from the Board of Medical Examiners after they all conceded they had conflicts and shouldn’t be making decisions about Dr. Dipak Desai and his endoscopy clinics.

They recused themselves on March 14. The next day, Gibbons gave his now infamous interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal saying the endoscopy issue was being overblown by news media “buffoonery.” He made statements that were flat-out wrong. “There was no single-vial of medication reused,” he said. Wrong. “There were no reused needles.” (Nobody said there were.)

On March 16, realizing how wrong he was, Gibbons issued a news release. He apologized for his comment about media “buffoonery” and said McBride, Javaid Anwar and Sohail Anjum should resign.

Demanding a resignation in a news release is pure political ineptitude.

Or was it a diversion tactic?

It certainly appeared as if the governor was trying to divert attention away from his foolish Saturday interview, attempting to look as if he were a man of action.

It worked. The doctors became the story, especially when they refused to go quietly. McBride was the first to fight back, but all three doctors essentially said, “Hell no, I won’t go.”

The governor said he’d force them out through legal means, which meant he had to find cause for them to be removed. McBride stood at the forefront, insisting he’d done nothing wrong and that by recusing themselves, the doctors had taken care of the conflict.

I thought back to 1984 when then-Gov. Richard Bryan appointed Renee Haman-Guild to the newly expanded Public Service Commission, knowing her father-in-law was an executive with Southwest Gas, one of the utilities regulated by the commission. “I realized I made a mistake,” Bryan said last week. He asked for her resignation; she refused. Ultimately, based on a technicality involving her party registration, she was ousted.

But the legal battle between the governor and his appointee took four months.

McBride, who I believe is a man of integrity, was urged to fight for his reputation. Just like with Haman-Guild, the good fight creates a firestorm of media attention.

He recused himself for reasons that could show bias both for and against Desai. McBride has known Desai for 25 years and works out of the same medical building as the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada.

On the other hand, his wife has been notified she needs to get tested for hepatitis B and C and HIV because she was one of the 40,000 who had a procedure at the clinic when staff was using unsafe practices, reusing syringes and combining vials of anesthesia.

McBride’s other conflict is serving as chairman of the board for the Nevada Mutual Insurance Co., a doctor-owned insurance company. Doctors created the insurance company in 2002 after a major medical malpractice carrier pulled out of Nevada, making it difficult for doctors to find insurers.

Since McBride served on the investigative committee of the Board of Medical Examiners, some thought he might use his position there to protect doctors insured by Nevada Mutual by rejecting malpractice claims against them.

“If I’m guilty of anything, it’s of trying to do too much,” said McBride, who resigned as chairman of the insurance company this past week.

McBride failed to see the potential for conflicts between the insurance company and his role on the Board of Medical Examiners. He assumed since it was known he served on both, that disclosure was enough.

The barrage of media coverage will only dwindle if he resigns, which I believe he may do soon, just to end the controversy. “I need my reputation restored,” McBride told me Friday, clearly emotional.

Bad guys don’t care when someone impugns their character. Good guys, however, are devastated at insinuations. Dan McBride is devastated.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.