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Doctor accuses medical board of trying to ‘lynch’ him by alleging incompetence
['Clark Kauffman', 'More From Author', '- June']
Date: 2022-06-03 00:00:00
A western Iowa physician accused of causing the death of a patient and of posing a “high risk” to the public has told a judge the state licensing board is out to “lynch” him based on a “phony” competency evaluation.
Attorneys for Dr. Andrew Obamwonyi of Storm Lake have taken the Iowa Board of Medicine to court twice in the past year in an effort to block any disciplinary action against him. The doctor claims the board has used “cloak-and-dagger tactics” to force him to submit to a “phony” evaluation of his skills and then used that evaluation to “lynch” him and engage in character assassination.
The Board of Medicine alleges the evaluation resulted in the doctor scoring “worse than 99% of other individuals that took the test” and exposed serious gaps in the doctor’s knowledge.
Court records indicate Obamwonyi was issued an Iowa medical license in December 2011 and that his specialties include occupational and emergency medicine.
In March 2016, the board was informed of a malpractice claim pertaining to Obamwonyi’s care of a patient, identified in state records only as “J.P.” The board opened, and then closed on the same day, a case involving that patient’s care. A year later, the board was informed the malpractice claim had resulted in a $50,000 payout and it reopened the case. In September 2017, it ordered a clinical evaluation of Obamwonyi’s skills.
By then, another investigation involving Obamwonyi was already underway. In May 2016, the board had received a complaint about care provided by Obamwonyi to a different patient, “S.C.,” concerning an alleged failure to adequately diagnose the patient’s condition.
The board investigated that complaint, but Obamwonyi allegedly failed to respond to the board’s inquiries, which resulted in a statement of charges for failure to cooperate with a board investigation. That charge was resolved through a settlement agreement. The underlying complaint related to patient care was investigated with the board eventually issuing Obamwonyi a private letter of warning.
Obamwonyi submitted to the board-ordered evaluation of his skills in April 2018, which identified what the board calls “several serious clinical and competency deficiencies.” As a result, the board ordered Obamwonyi to submit to a “structured, individualized education intervention.”
Board questions ‘safety and welfare’ of patients
Obamwonyi objected to the board order and a contested case hearing was scheduled for May 2021, with the board poised to issue public charges of professional incompetency.
Mike Sellers, Obamwonyi’s attorney, took the matter to court to block any further action. While identifying his client only as “Dr. John Doe,” he argued that the board’s order for a competency evaluation had contained false statements suggesting the doctor had caused “the death of a patient.”
Attorneys for the board warned the court that “Doe” was continuing “to see patients without any hindrance on his license. The board should be able to hear the case and make findings as quickly as possible about the potential threat Dr. Doe serves to the public of Iowa with his professional incompetency. The safety and welfare of the patients Dr. Doe serves may be in question and that high risk deserves a resolution as quickly as feasible.”
The court denied Sellers’ request for an order blocking or delaying the hearing on the incompetency charge, noting that the doctor’s administrative remedies had yet to be exhausted. The case proceeded and in January, Sellers filed a new lawsuit against the board seeking an order that would prevent it from publishing a final decision in the case or imposing any discipline on his client, whom he again identified only as “Dr. John Doe.”
Within a month, court filings by the judge and the attorney general’s office revealed “Doe” to be Obamwonyi.
According to the most recently filed court records, the first complaint pertaining to Obamwonyi involved a failure to properly diagnose the patient’s spinal fractures, which resulted in further harm to the patient. The board noted that while a triage nurse had noted the patient’s “neck pain,” Obamwonyi said he had never reviewed those notes and did not arrange for an MRI to rule out spinal cord injuries, despite the patient’s symptoms.
As for the second patient, that complaint dealt an ectopic pregnancy, a condition involves a fertilized egg attached outside the uterus. If left untreated, that condition can lead to life-threatening bleeding. The board noted what it called “serious concerns” about Obamwonyi’s evaluation, testing and treatment of that patient, citing “clear signs of a potential ectopic pregnancy.”
Obamwonyi’s lawyer, Sellers, told the court recently that while the board has sought to justify its order for a competency evaluation by citing the two previous disciplinary cases, both of those matters were closed by the board when the order was issued. “The board did not file a statement of charges in either of these cases after the board carefully considered each,” Sellers argued. “Therefore, no probable cause could have existed.”
Iowa law, Sellers told the court, does not give the licensing board “unbridled discretion to resurrect a case” after previously deciding there was no probable cause to pursue disciplinary action. “These two cases should have remained closed,” Sellers told the court, stating that the previous decisions had amounted to an “acquittal.”
In response, the board has alleged it has acted within its rights and that the 2018 evaluation included a multiple-choice test that revealed gaps in Obamwonyi’s “foundational knowledge.” Obamwonyi, the board alleged, “scored worse than 99% of other individuals that took the test.”
A hearing on the matter was held Friday morning in Polk County District Court, but a decision by the court has yet to be filed.
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