The Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, which has often fallen woefully short of protecting the public from bad doctors and shoddy medical practices, has added another notch to its belt by creating a fresh controversy involving medical assistants.
Medical assistants help doctors and licensed physician assistants but under state administrative code are not required to be licensed or certified. Medical assistants have been allowed to participate in the treatment of a patient only if the assistant has Òsufficient training to provide the assistance.Ó The fact that Òsufficient trainingÓ was never fully defined has created murkiness in the law, which the board has made worse by its recent actions.
As reported by Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston and by Dana Gentry, executive producer of the television program ÒFace to Face With Jon RalstonÓ on Las Vegas ONE, the board created a mess by pursuing legal action against a medical assistant for allegedly injecting Botox into a patient illegally. At the same time, the board ignored another assistant who was reportedly doing the same thing on behalf of Dr. Benjamin Rodriguez, the boardÕs vice president.
Talk about selective prosecution.
The board exacerbated the messy situation Friday when — prompted by the reporting of Ralston and Gentry — it adopted an emergency regulation on the role medical assistants may play in patient treatment. Instead of clarifying the law, the board made the murky situation worse.
The board, mindful of the high demand for swine flu shots, voted to temporarily allow medical assistants to administer flu shots and other vaccinations under a doctorÕs supervision but prohibited assistants from giving injections involving Botox, cosmetic fillers and certain other drugs. It has been reported that assistants who work for medical spas have lost their jobs because of anticipation of the new regulations.
Another problem is that the board still hasnÕt clarified the amount of training an assistant should receive before administering shots, other than to leave that up to the physicians. That, of course, could lead to assistants who are unevenly qualified.
The boardÕs work was so sloppy that Clark County District Judge Kathleen Delaney on Monday issued a preliminary injunction against the regulation, based on arguments from a lawyer representing doctors and medical spas that the board violated the state open meeting law by cutting off public comment at its meeting.
Ultimately, what the board should do is to require all assistants who administer shots to get state-approved training and certification. This should guarantee a level of competence that will put patientsÕ minds at ease.
Copyright 2009 Las Vegas Sun
