Nevada medical board director Ling resigns

CARSON CITY -- Louis Ling, executive director of the State Board of Medical Examiners, resigned his post Friday following a tumultuous month during which doctors said they were confused about rules regarding whether their medical assistants would be able to give shots.

Ling's resignation becomes effective immediately, said Dr. Charles Held, the board's president, in a brief news release sent Friday afternoon. He said Doug Cooper, chief of investigations for the board, will take over as executive director on an interim basis.

Ling, Held and Cooper did not return calls seeking comment.

Ling's move comes shortly after resolution to a chaotic situation developed when the medical board tried to implement emergency regulations that would allow medical assistants to give flu vaccinations but not cosmetic injections such as Botox.

Ling had previously interpreted a 30-year-old rule to mean that medical assistants could not give shots of any kind and so, with flu season approaching and with stockpiles of the H1N1 vaccine coming in, the emergency board meeting was called.

The new rules were passed, but a judge later ruled that the board had violated Nevada's open meeting law.

And just this week, reversing a position it had taken for weeks, the board determined Tuesday that state law allows medical assistants to administer everything from flu shots to Botox. Medical assistants could give shots as long as long as they are under the "direct supervision" of a physician. Most health officials and doctors take that to mean the physician is on premises.

This means that pediatricians and other doctors will be able to more easily meet the demand for flu shots, childhood vaccinations and other critical medical procedures they feared they wouldn't be able to provide to patients.

Physicians had warned Gov. Jim Gibbons that there wouldn't be enough health professionals to give the shots.

Representatives for Gibbons could not be reached for comment Friday.

State Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley had called the whole situation "absurd."

"You can't let concerns about the way a few medical assistants administer Botox stop thousands of Nevadans from getting flu shots," she said earlier this week.

The medical board and lawmakers will begin working on clarifying rules for medical assistants and are expected to address the issue at the 2011 Legislature.

Ling's resignation came shortly after former Washoe County Commissioner Jean Stoess announced that she had resigned from the board at Gibbons' request because she had broken a board policy.

Stoess admitted talking to the press and giving a reporter a confidential memo, even though board policy has been that Ling handles press requests.

Ling is a former deputy attorney general who served as legal counsel to the state Board of Pharmacy and state Ethics Commission.

Contact reporter Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.