A new deputy health director announced Tuesday corrects a hiring blunder that kept Baltimore County from compliance with state regulations ? and without a top health director licensed to practice medicine in Maryland for months ? officials said.
County Executive Jim Smith named Dr. Gregory Branch to fill the vacant deputy health officer position effective Dec. 18. Branch saves the county from hiring a second deputy to meet state laws that require county health officers, or their deputies, to be licensed, said County Council members.
They said they approved Smith?s appointment of Pierre Vigilance in September 2005 under the assumption he possessed a state license, which he did not. EllenClayton, a nurse, served as deputy director until she resigned in August for Villa Julie College.
“It kind of left them off the hook,” said Council member Joe Bartenfelder, D-District 6. “With this hiring, they correct the errors that they raised.”
An internist, Branch leaves Schaller Anderson of Maryland, which administers Maryland?s HealthChoice program, where he served as chief medical officer for Maryland Physicians Care and Maryland Health Insurance Plan, according to the county. Branch holds a medical degree from State University of New York at Buffalo and a master?s in business administration from the University of Baltimore.
Council members said they learned Vigilance was not licensed from Patuxent Publishing newspapers. To avoid replacing Vigilance, Bartenfelder said county officials proposed converting a vacant physician?s job into a second deputy position with a $91,000 salary.
That will no longer happen, said county spokeswoman Marjorie Hampson.
Vigilance said Eric Fine, a licensed pediatrician, has been serving since Clayton?s departure. Vigilance does not have a license, he said, because he is more interested in public health than clinical medicine.
“I am first and foremost an administrator who is a communicator and educator trying to empower the community,” Vigilance said. “I am not the person who people go to for clinical health advice.”
