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Multnomah County officials tell WW that County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson was aware that Dr. Eleazar Lawson faced two pending malpractice lawsuits before the county hired him in August to oversee medical care at the county’s jails.
The interim director of the health department consulted with Vega Pederson and ultimately pulled the trigger on the hire after reassuring her that ongoing legal scrutiny of Lawson would be given further vetting. County spokespeople would not go into additional detail about what that vetting entailed.
As WW first reported, Lawson was hired by the county to lead medical care in its jails while Lawson was under investigation by the Oregon Medical Board for negligence while working as a surgeon at a Providence hospital in Oregon City.
The Medical Board opened its investigation of Lawson in March 2022, but the first public disclosure of that investigation arrived Nov. 2. But many of the underlying allegations were described in a lawsuit filed more than two years ago that resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement, according to a public disclosure filed with the Medical Board in February.
The county says Vega Pederson was consulted in the hiring process, which was led by the health department’s interim director, Valdez Bravo, who had been temporarily promoted from his position as the department’s deputy director of operations after his predecessor left for a state job early this year.
“The chair asked about the two pending lawsuits listed on Dr. Lawson’s résumé,” spokeswoman Sarah Dean said in a statement, which came after WW’s press deadline Tuesday. “Bravo responded that those would be addressed as part of the professional vetting and credentialing steps that occur after a candidate is selected. The chair did not express other concerns as long as the post-selection vetting and credentialing addressed the lawsuits and [county] COO Serena Cruz approved moving forward.”
The county has not yet responded to all of WW’s questions, including whether it was aware of a $2.25 million settlement paid out after one of Lawson’s patients alleged he was disfigured following a series of surgical errors.
Record of that settlement was publicly available from the Medical Board, and later obtained by WW.
At the time of Lawson’s hire, the board was investigating the underlying allegations and ultimately accused Lawson of “gross negligence” on Nov. 2.