Nurse Anesthetists and Wright
One more tidbit from the SBOE hearing on Thomas Wright:
Sitting in the audience were a hand full of nurse anesthetists, basically nurses who put you to sleep for operations.
That group has been fighting a running battle in the legislature with anesthesiologists over the past few years. The doctors want to create a new class of paraprofessionals that would do the same thing as the nurses do.
The nurses' names first arose during investigations into former House Speaker Jim Black.
But this issue in controversy was before Wright's committee and, according to testimony Tuesday, they threw a fundraiser for him in 2005.
The state board closed its hearing before hearing from the nurses who apparently had showed up to testified.
Michael Crowell is an attorney for the nurses and I asked him what was up.
"They would have testified if they were asked to," he said.
Apparently, the nurses would have testified about contributions they made to Wright that either were not reported or were reported late.
"My impression is that Rep. Wright's problems are of a nature that is a lot larger and different than the nurse anesthetists know about," Crowell said. "They are among the witness to an accident, they aren't the ones who were closest or saw the most."
What it comes down to, apparently, is the nurses could add specifics to the pattern that the state board established.
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