Gibbons changes board temporarily

Three Las Vegas physicians will temporarily replace members of the state's Board of Medical Examiners during proceedings involving the hepatitis C outbreak, Gov. Jim Gibbons announced Wednesday.

Doctors Ronald Kline, a pediatric hematologist oncologist, Beverly Neyland, a pediatrician, and Robert Wiencek, a cardiovascular surgeon, are to fill the seats.

Board members Sohail Anjum, Javaid Anwar and Daniel McBride agreed to recuse themselves from matters relating to the hepatitis C outbreak because of their professional and personal relationships with Dr. Dipak Desai, majority owner of the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada at 700 Shadow Lane.

Health officials believe six people acquired hepatitis C at the ambulatory surgery center due to unsafe medical practices. Roughly 40,000 patients of the Shadow Lane facility were sent letters from health officials urging them to get tested for hepatitis and HIV because of possible exposure.

Gibbons also appointed Dr. Edwin "Flip" Homansky, a Las Vegas emergency room physician, to the state's Board of Health. Homansky replaces Dr. Vishvinder Sharma, a Las Vegas gastroenterologist and co-owner of Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center at 4275 Burnham Avenue.

The center is affiliated with the Shadow Lane facility and is believed to be source of a seventh hepatitis C case, which stems from an endoscopy procedure performed on a male patient in 2006.

Sharma resigned from the board of health last month.

Homansky, who spent three years on the Nevada State Athletic Commission and more than 20 years as a boxing ringside physician, said his job is to make sure the highest level of care and safety is being provided to all Nevadans.

"I know it sounds trite, but I don't think it has been done in the past,'' Homansky said about state regulatory agencies ensuring the safety of medical care in Nevada. "I think that the vast majority of health care providers in our community do their very best and I think the regulatory agencies have tried, in the past, to make sure standards are met. Sometimes that's difficult, for whatever reason. Also, I know that confidence in health care is poor in Nevada right now.''

Homansky said his goal is to try and restore faith in the medical community. He knows of Desai and affiliated doctors, but said he does not have relationships with them.

Desai was head of gastroenterology at Valley Hospital where Homansky is an emergency room physician.

"I knew Dr. Desai and most of the gastroenterologists involved,'' he said. "I have no social relationships with them. I have no financial or business relationships.''

Kline, who is a shareholder of Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada, said his role on the medical board "is going to be to look at the facts and figure out what happened.''

"We will discipline those who need disciplining if we find that people did things wrong,'' said Kline, 46. "Our job is also to make sure this doesn't happen again.''

Kline is past-president of the Clark County Medical Society and secretary of the Nevada State Medical Association.

Neyland is professor of pediatrics at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. She is also president of the Nevada Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Contact reporter Annette Wells at awells@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0283.