This is an open letter to the Arizona Mirror pertaining to their upcoming story on the Arizona State Veterinary Medical Examining Board in light of email questions leading to an upcoming interview with the state veterinary board's chair, Nikki Frost. The document heavily suggests reporting that, without changes, will be both inaccurate and fail to cite the original source of much of the information.
As someone quite concerned about the state veterinary board, I'm obviously quite happy that the media is at long last taking an interest in this little-known and oft-neglected state agency. However, I do have concerns about the rigor of Evoy's investigations, particularly after reading his communications with the board for his upcoming story. While he seems to grasp some parts of a very complex issue, the exchange also seems to betray a broad unfamiliarity with Arizona statutes and regulatory operations related to veterinary care. Many of the questions are based on premises that are at best half-true, while the overall context suggests a somewhat amorphous understanding of the most significant deficiences with the board's operation. The board's executive director, Victoria Whitmore, even noted in her response to him that "[i]t seems that providing some background about the Board's role and legal authority would be helpful for you." Unfortunately, her assessment seems to be correct.
I also have serious questions as to whether or not this site will be adequately cited as the original source for much of Evoy's story. His inquiries to the board's executive director read like a Fractured Fairy Tales version of content already researched and previously published on this site (and shared with him shortly after he began work on his story). As Evoy correctly noted to me, I'm neither his editor nor a journalist, but several of his lines of inquiry appear to be directly based on my own conversations with him and my independent research into the board over the past two years. Some of this information, at least in his email to Whitmore, appears to be passed off as his own research rather than third-party information he subsequently verified. Failure to sufficiently and accurately cite the website in any final product would be nothing less than plagiarism.
I look forward to reviewing the final product on the Mirror's website and hope that the topic will finally obtain the serious attention and reporting it has so long deserved. I also continue to strongly encourage him to follow up with others from this site he has spoken with and incorporate their unique life experiences and insights regarding the state of veterinary care and regulation in Arizona. The final victims in this particular tale truly have no voice whatsoever, and we can only hope that those fortunate enough to tell the story will do it justice.
Evoy's questions as submitted to the veterinary board are in bold. Responses and corrections are below each section, along with notes regarding the need for citations in his finished story.
Here are my questions and line of inquiry:
After reviewing a state auditor general report and records obtained from a third party, it appears the board dismisses a larger number of complaints than it does take action. What is the reasoning behind dismissing such a large number of complaints?
This question may be partially based on a faulty premise. The vast majority of complaints could be frivolous and may deserve to be tossed out. The real question is whether or not the dismissal rate is too high given the nature of the complaints that were filed, and unless Evoy has read a statistically-significant number, he would be unable to form an opinion to challenge any response. I've read around 650 of them and I would concur that they're very eager to dismiss, but that's at least an informed opinion by a member of the lay public. If Evoy hasn't done similar research or have another source that has, this is essentially a softball question for the board that makes our collective arguments look weak.
The state auditor general report is from the mid-1990s and we mention it on the site. Those statistics are in the same general ball park as current dismissal rates, but the bigger story with the auditor general's report is its findings about the board itself and how subsequent reform efforts failed to fix anything. It's worth a read and can be found on the auditor general's website.
The "third party" he mentions regarding records is, I assume, this website. It's been publishing public records (that I obtained directly from the board at personal expense) of veterinary complaints for years, and it also maintains a detailed statistical database based on the aggregate information. I assume Evoy will give attribution to any "third party" (including this site) in his article.
Several people I have spoken with have talked about the difficulty in requesting an appeal on a decision made by the board or a review of evidence. Many have noted the difficulty in being able to interface with the board in a setting other than at a public meeting. What steps does the board take to make itself more available to the public and professionals to allow for greater transparency?
This displays a fundamental inaccuracy in the Mirror's current line of inquiry, suggesting seriously incomplete research by Evoy despite the several months of alleged work on this story. It is a well-known fact in Arizona veterinary regulation that there is no provision in state law for a complainant to appeal an adverse ruling. This was notably upheld in Kaufman v. Arizona State Veterinary Medical Examining Board (1 CA-CV 09-0094), part of a seminal set of cases regarding veterinary regulations and malpractice claims in the wake of the death of Salty the Macaw. (According to my attorney during my veterinary board hearing, Assistant Attorney General Mark Harris explained to him that complainants are more like a victim in a criminal case, whereas the board is more like the prosecutor that decides whether to bring charges.)
The board doesn't need to make itself available for such appeals because there's simply no provision for that to happen, and the "several people" he refers to are misinformed. Inaccuracies such as this serve to misdirect fron the underlying fact that complainants are essentially a non-entity during the process, even by the standards of administrative law. The veterinary board is not a courtroom and the complainant is not a plaintiff. Again, this reinforces concerns that the research underlying the article lacks sufficient rigor and fails to characterize broader public concerns regarding the board's operations.
Earlier this year, the board moved to consolidate its two investigative committees into one committee. One of the new people assigned to this committee is an individual named Justin McCormick who has had a number of complaints filed against him and so has his wife. Does the board find any ethical issues with having a professional who has had multiple complaints made against him as a member of a “super” committee that aims to investigate complaints?
While a relatively minor mistake, it should be noted that IC member McCormick was not "new" to the Investigative Committee. His tenure on the IC predated the reconstituted single "super" committee and was routinely involved in handling investigative committee responsibilities prior to that date. In fact, our current database, which is not yet updated for the prior fiscal year, indicates that he had voted on at least 40 complaints already with a dismissal rate on par with the norm.
It should also be noted that this information regarding McCormick and the "super" committee came directly from this very website and an earlier public records request we made over the summer. Concerns about McCormick's past complaint history are mentioned throughout the site and were directly mentioned to Evoy by myself as a particularly disturbing example of IC appointments. I also introduced Evoy to a complainant who allegedly lost both their horses due to the McCormicks' involvement. The memo regarding the "super" committee was obtained on July 24 of this year and immediately forwarded to Evoy the same day. I expect the finished story will attribute much of this information to the Veterinary Victims League website.
(Note: The allegations in the memo are quite concerning, with the board's own executive director admitting that many investigative committee members appeared to be unable to mentally discharge their duties of office for quite some time, necessitating a face-saving overhaul of the very process with board approval. Why the Arizona Mirror has delayed any publication or investigation into this matter for half a year is unknown. I initially refrained from publishing the memo independently out of etiquette for the Mirror's purported work, but it appears that Evoy is not pursuing this line of inquiry in his reporting.)
In my research I’ve also noticed that a number of people who have come and gone from the board have had connections to other members in some form or another, What steps does the board take to ensure that the candidates that do apply to the board do not have conflicts of interest and that the board is getting a wide variety of professional opinions?
This question appears to be ill-formed on Evoy's part and conflates the board members with the members of the Investigative Committee. It's correct that board members often have various connections to one another. It's also correct that IC members often have connections either to each other or to board members. However, board candidates are not reviewed by the board. The governor appoints board candidates and they are approved by the state senate, so the question is more appropriately directed to former governors and senators who appointed and confirmed them. The board only selects the candidates for the Investigative Committees.
His "research" on this topic seems lifted from my own research published on this website well before he began his story. I first informed Evoy of problems regarding entanglements between board members and between board and IC members months ago, back when his focus was on potential slow-walking of complaints by the board. I've mentioned it again lately to emphasize. This information was also heavily covered in the Regulatory Roll Call and backed up by public records we've posted to the Internet Archive. I expect that this will also be properly attributed to the Veterinary Victims League website.
An attorney I spoke with noted that filing a complaint with the board has “no point” as this attorney claimed the board sides more often than not with veterinarians and often "outright dismisses" claims made by pet owners. With a board mainly consisting of veterinarians and some who have had complaints, how does the board ensure fairness in the complaint process? How often do board members recuse themselves from voting on cases?
This may be inaccurate. I can personally find no evidence that any of the board members currently serving have had a complaint lodged against them over the past few years. Perhaps Evoy has it, but as there's no record of public records correspondence with the board and he only contacted them at the beginning of December, I'm unsure where that would come from. Some have had some close calls with associates, but none directly. I fear he may be confusing the veterinary board (ASVMEB) with the veterinary association (AzVMA). I've mentioned there are several AzVMA directors who have been involved in complaints over the years, but they are not the board.
The rest is accurate. One of the fundamental issues of such regulatory boards is that by law they usually contain a majority of members hailing from the profession being regulated. Of those that do not, so-called public members, they can often be adjacent to the profession being regulated in some capacity (the greater pet community). Recusal is less significant in that it's only relevant in rare situations where a person on the board has an entanglement or familiarity with the respondent veterinarian (such as Nikki Frost herself in 22-112). However, the veterinary community is in reality quite small, and playing a "Six Degrees of Separation" sort of game would likely catch up more than a few. The bigger issue is that a board of the regulated, by the regulated, in an already small pool of fish is unlikely to advocate for higher standards that would tax their profession, burden its members, and harm the profits of many veterinarian owner-operators. This problem is far more insidious, and unlike actual medicine, veterinary medicine is a relatively new invention without the same level of professional maturity or ethical traditions.
Some are pushing for changes to the law for pets to not just be considered property so in instances of malpractice a person can sue for intrinsic value. Is this something that the board would support?
This again displays a fundamental ignorance of the role of the state veterinary board. The state veterinary board is responsible for regulating the veterinary profession, and while it does now have the ability to award refunds for veterinary care, it does not handle malpractice lawsuits. Those are handled in actual courts. This question should, at best, be directed toward the Arizona Veterinary Medical Association (AzVMA) which represents practicing veterinarians in the state.
(As an aside, this also conflates the broader notion of the legal status of pets with targeted measures to increase damage awards. This reduces an improved legal and moral status for a companion animal to yet another purely financial consideration. If published in such a form, it would unfairly group those advocating for greater legal rights or non-human personhood with those seeking additional monetary gain.)
— Frederick John Milens III