The Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine on Tuesday found Dr. Meryl Nass guilty of medical incompetence and placed her on two-year probation, subject to remedial sanctions. Nass, who last month sued the board, said her case comes down to defending the patient-provider relationship.

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | 09/21/23 | The Defender – CHD

In a unanimous vote, the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine on Tuesday found Dr. Meryl Nass guilty of multiple allegations of professional incompetence and placed Nass on probation for two years with a provisional license.

The board also issued a set of remedial sanctions that Nass must complete before being allowed to freely practice medicine again.

During its seventh day of hearings, the board determined Nass had violated medical recordkeeping standards for telemedicine and failed to provide informed consent to three COVID-19 patients for whom she had prescribed hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Nass, a practicing internal medicine physician and member of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) scientific advisory board, faced the initial suspension of her license on Jan. 12, 2022, for spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.”

The board later dropped the charges of misinformation but came up with a new set of charges. The board based their Sept. 19 decision on this new set of charges.

Rather than conducting the hearings over consecutive days, the board held hearings about every other month since October 2022 — with Nass’s ability to practice medicine being suspended the entire time.

The board’s decision on Tuesday runs contrary to the testimonies of Nass’ patients who, according to Nass’ attorney, all made “glowing comments” about her availability, her medical advice and her handling of their cases.

Nass discussed the board’s decision with CHD President Mary Holland on Wednesday’s episode of Good Morning, CHD, telling Holland the board chose “the most draconian punishments they possibly could” in order to humiliate her.

For example, the board is requiring Nass to take courses in professional ethics and medical recordkeeping and mandating she hire someone to monitor her practice “who would review my charts and possibly sit next to me in the office.”

The board’s decision order, which contains the exact details of the probationary period and remedial sanctions, has yet to be made public, Nass told The Defender.

Nass targeted as ‘prominent’ doctor opposing COVID shots

According to Holland, Nass — an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 vaccines — was likely targeted by the board because she is “a prominent physician who was courageous enough to not go along with the official narrative that you have to take these shots.”

Nass has a Substack blog and is a prominent voice in the medical community with an impeccable record, Holland said.

“Clearly, you are targeted probably not just by the Maine medical board, but even by the Federation of State Medical Boards that’s been so powerful in California and in state policies throughout the country,” Holland told Nass.

Holland told viewers CHD is assisting Nass with legal fees. “I am very delighted that we are working with you on this,” she said.

Nass pointed out that the board’s decision ignored extensive evidence presented during the prior six hearing sessions. She said:

“What had been established during these six prior hearing days was that my records were adequate, that the patients had all been treated properly, that I had not delayed recommending two of them go to the hospital.

“In fact, I had done it very appropriately and their own expert acknowledged that.”

Assistant attorneys general representing the board staff on Sept. 15 submitted closing arguments to the board in which they “completely ignored all the evidence.”

According to Nass, the board members relied heavily on those arguments as the basis for their decision and ignored the 30 pages of closing arguments that Nass’ attorneys submitted the same day, summarizing why Nass was not guilty of the remaining charges against her.

“We had nine people’s testimonies, we had hundreds — maybe a thousand documents —  admitted as evidence, and none of that counted,” Nass said.

Nass also said the board intentionally avoided permanently revoking her license because then she could have immediately gone in front of a judge and the judge would then have access to the entire record for the hearings.

In that scenario, “The judge would read it and immediately be aware that what they [the board members] had done on day seven had nothing to do with the previous six days and then they would be in trouble,” she explained.

“That was something they did not want to have happen … so that’s why the punishments were meted out in the way they were,” Nass said.

Board hearings designed to show Nass ‘who was the boss’

Nass told Holland the hearing was “an expensive process designed to humiliate me, waste my time and money and show me who was the boss.”

She added:

“I don’t get to say what I think. I don’t get to write what I think. I don’t get to treat patients the way I think and the patients certainly cannot get the care they want. The board is the final arbiter.”

Holland said the hearing sounded like a “show trial” that is “really about showing a power dynamic” rather than about seeking justice or finding out what happened.

Holland said it seemed Nass was targeted “to send a message to doctors everywhere that, ‘You don’t get to do what you think is in the patient’s best interest. You do what we tell you to do.’”

Holland also said she found it “extraordinary” that the board members “conveniently forgot” the basis on which they brought charges against Nass and then put up new charges “obviously to humiliate you.”

‘The board really is the one breaking the law’

Last month, Nass sued the board and its individual members, alleging they engaged in retaliatory conduct when they suspended her license in January 2022.

The suit also alleges the board violated her First Amendment rights and her rights under the Maine Constitution.

“The board really is the one breaking the law and so we are suing them,” she told Holland.

For instance, the main expert witness the board hired to use against Nass — Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency room physician from Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston — was hired illegally, she said.

“He was paid about three times the maximum amount allowed by law in the state of Maine. He was not licensed in Maine, which is a requirement, and he was not in my field,” she said.

Nass told Holland she was willing to continue her battle with the board “and to potentially lose my license forever” because the heart of her case is about defending the patient-provider relationship.

Nass said:

“[This battle is] about whether doctors and patients will be allowed in the future to decide on the care of the patient or whether there will be intrusions by the federal government, the insurance companies, the WHO [World Health Organization], the U.N. [United Nations], etc. who will be calling the shots and telling us what we can and can’t do to treat patients.”

Such intrusions into the patient-provider relationship could signal an end to the medical profession as we know it, Nass said. “If doctors don’t have the ability to treat patients individually, there’s no need to have doctors. A computer can do this just as well.”

She added, “You tell them what your symptoms are, they give you a diagnosis and they give you this treatment, the same treatment that everybody else gets, which was the plan for COVID-19.”