(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Board sanctions VA therapist fired for incompetence and 'hostile' conduct • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
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Date: 2025-07-21
Iowa regulators have suspended the license of a Veterans Affairs respiratory therapist fired for incompetence and “hostile and aggressive behavior.”
Last November, the Iowa Board of Respiratory Care charged George Iannetta with professional incompetence and making misleading or untrue representations in the practice of his profession.
The board alleged that in February 2024, Iannetta filed an application to renew his Iowa license and answered “no” to a question asking whether he had ever been investigated or sanctioned by a licensing board.
Federal records indicate that prior to making his application, Iannetta worked for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for several years, earning an annual salary of up to $95,383.
The board alleges that after renewing Iannetta’s Iowa license, it received a letter from Dr. Brett Rusch, executive director of the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Vermont, alerting the board to disciplinary action it had taken against Iannetta.
The letter reported the VA had conducted an investigation and concluded there was substantial evidence that Iannetta “so significantly failed to meet generally accepted standards of clinical practice as to raise reasonable concern for the safety of patients.” The letter allegedly stated that conclusion had been reached based on “significant treatment and diagnostic errors” by Iannetta.
A board investigator then contacted an employee in charge of credentialing at the VA. That individual allegedly confirmed that prior to Iannetta’s resignation from the VA, he faced “permanent removal” from the VA due to conduct that occurred throughout 2023.
‘Nothing is worse than a rat!’
According to the board, its investigator then obtained a copy of the charges Veterans Affairs had imposed against Iannetta, which included failure to cooperate with an agency investigation; failure to enter required notes in patients’ medical records; delaying the entry of notes in medical record; being absent without leave; failure to carry out a supervisor’s instruction; using disrespectful language with coworkers; conduct unbecoming a federal employee; inappropriate conduct in a patient-care area; and inappropriate and unsolicited touching of a female colleague.
The charges were tied to allegations that Iannetta placed his hands on the shoulders of a coworker and rubbed them; had failed to enter medical notes into 39 different patients’ medical charts, which may have caused the patients harm; had engaged in a verbal altercation with a coworker who was fearful that Iannetta was going to hit her and summoned the VA police; had changed clothes in a common office area, resulting in a female colleague seeing him with his pants down; had changed his clothes while in an office in front of a female coworker; and had once referred to a coworker as a “rat” while adding, “I hate a rat. Nothing is worse than a rat!”
According to the Iowa board, the VA decided to fire Iannetta, concluding he had engaged in “workplace bullying” and “disruptive workplace behaviors” and had displayed “highly emotional and chaotic behaviors, heated outbursts, gross insubordination (and) lack of accountability for his inappropriate behavior.”
The Iowa board alleges its investigator emailed Iannetta several times, seeking his input on the VA’s findings. In response, the board says, Iannetta asked the investigator to send him the VA report, stating he “didn’t know the specific nature of the allegations” that had been made against him, and asserting that he was “unaware of any disciplinary actions” taken against him.
After presiding over a board hearing on the matter last month, Administrative Law Judge Rachel Morgan ordered that Iannetta’s Iowa license be suspended indefinitely for a period of at least one year. In her decision, Morgan wrote that there was “significant evidence that Iannetta engaged in professional incompetency” and that he had engaged in “repeated hostile and aggressive behavior” toward his supervisors and coworkers.
The order stipulates that before his Iowa license can be reinstated, Iannetta must undergo a psychological evaluation and comply with any recommendations for treatment. In addition, he must complete 15 hours in anger-management training and complete 15 hours of continuing-education training in ethics.
When asked by the Iowa Capital Dispatch whether he’d like to comment on the case, Iannetta said only, “I have many comments. However, I doubt there are enough words allocated to your article to accommodate them.”
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