An Iowa physician who successfully challenged the state’s efforts to privately sanction him for incompetence is now suing the federal government.
In 2017, the Iowa Board of Medicine issued Dr. Mark B. Irland, a licensed physician who practiced primarily in Marengo, what it called a “confidential letter of warning.” Court records show the board sent Irland the letter after reviewing a complaint about the medical care he provided patients.
The board’s confidential letter, which Irland later made public through his own court filings, referenced “serious concerns” regarding his October 2015 treatment of a 29-year-old man, Nicholas Novak, who died after Irland allegedly “failed to recognize the seriousness of Mr. Novak’s medical condition and ignored the concerns of other health care professionals involved in his treatment.”…