Iowa medical board names interim director, won't say why old one was suspended and left

Tony Leys | The Des Moines Register

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Iowa’s physician-licensing board on Thursday named its longtime lawyer as its interim executive director, while continuing to stay mum on why its former director abruptly retired last month after being suspended and then reinstated.

The Iowa Board of Medicine unanimously chose attorney Kent Nebel to lead the agency for the time being.

Nebel, who is the board's director of legal affairs, has worked for the board for nearly 20 years. He is filling the seat of Mark Bowden, who retired July 27. Nebel's appointment came during a brief telephone conference, at which there was little discussion of the situation.

The board’s executive director serves as one of the most powerful health-care regulators in Iowa. Bowden, 65, had held the position since 2008, before being placed on paid leave in June for undisclosed reasons.

At the July 27 meeting, Bowden denounced the board and other state administrators and said he expected to be fired. After the board then voted to reinstate him, he told a Des Moines Register reporter he still believed he would be fired. Three days later, the board announced he had retired. No one has publicly explained what was behind the turmoil.

Reasons for Bowden departure remain unknown

Assistant Attorney General Jordan Esbrook, who represents the board, released 21 pages of internal emails Wednesday in response to an open-records request from the Des Moines Register. The attorney general's office did not release a report from the Department of Public Health about Bowden. Esbrook said the report is exempt from the open-records law, because “it contains personal information from confidential personnel records.”

She would not comment on whether any employees or others had complained about Bowden’s management of the agency.

Esbrook also blacked out a six-line paragraph from an email that Board Chairman Kyle Ulveling sent to her, Nebel and other board members on June 29, the day Bowden was suspended. She said the information in that paragraph was protected by attorney-client privilege.

In an un-redacted portion of his June 29 email, Ulveling told fellow board members that the conditions of Bowden's administrative leave included that he have no contact with any of them. Ulveling, who is a Carroll cardiologist, indicated the issue with Bowden had come up suddenly. "Personally, I understand if all are quite surprised by this," he wrote to his colleagues.

Bowden, who was paid $114,312 last year, has not responded to requests for comment since he retired. Before he became executive director of the medical board, he was the longtime editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. At the newspaper, he volunteered as a leader of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, which pushes for openness in government.

Randy Evans, a retired Des Moines Register editor who is now executive director of the Freedom of Information Council, said the medical board should tell the public why Bowden was suspended and then suddenly left. Evans said the situation should be covered by a 2017 state law that says the public should be told the reasons why a government employee is fired, demoted or resigns in lieu of being fired.

“The people of Iowa deserve an explanation of what led to this,” Evans wrote in an email to the Register. “…It's clear Mark Bowden, when he resigned, thought he was going to be terminated when the medical board scheduled the special meeting for (July 30.) Their refusal to shed any light on his suspension certainly is not in the spirit of the changes made in the law last year.”

The attorney general’s office contends the situation doesn’t fit the requirements of the law, because the board had not taken formal steps to fire Bowden.