Former state-employed doctor receives warning for incompetence • Iowa Capital Dispatch

State licensing officials accused a former state doctor of gross negligence or malpractice and settled with a warning and a request for the doctor to surrender his license, which had already expired.

State records show that in 2021, the Iowa Board of Medicine opened an investigation into Dr. Mohammad E. Rehman, the former medical director of the state's Glenwood Resource Center for People with Disabilities. That came three years after Glenwood medical staff publicly issued a vote of no confidence in Rehman's abilities and a year after Rehman resigned to avoid being fired.

Rehman's license expired in 2022. More than two years later, in June of this year, the Medical Board filed charges against Rehman, accusing him of professional incompetence – an offense the board defines as “willful or repeated gross malpractice,” willful or gross negligence, lack of knowledge or ability to perform professional duties, or lack of care normally exercised by physicians.

With a hearing on the matter scheduled for September 2025, the committee decided last week to settle the case against Rehman by issuing him a warning and requiring him to surrender his expired medical license. No fines or civil penalties were imposed.

Although the case has now been resolved, the committee is not publicly disclosing the basis for the charges against Rehman, nor is it explaining how, where or when the criminal conduct occurred. The committee has also not said whether any patients were harmed by Rehman's conduct.

Unlike in other states, Iowa licensing boards typically do not disclose the specific allegations that lead to disciplinary action against licensees. In cases that are settled without a hearing, boards also do not disclose the reasons for their decisions.

Rehman's resignation from the Glenwood home came amid complaints from staff about inadequate medical care, reports that the Glenwood home's death rate had doubled, and a federal investigation into sexual arousal studies the home planned to conduct on its residents.

Rehman and the former Glenwood director were also among the defendants in a civil lawsuit filed by six former Glenwood employees, including two doctors and a nurse.

The lawsuit alleged that Rehman criticized doctors for providing “too much” diagnostic and treatment to residents and for sending too many patients to area hospitals for treatment instead of having them treated by Glenwood staff.

The plaintiffs also alleged that Rehman directed others to falsify or delete medical record entries to conceal incriminating information that Rehman believed should not appear in regularly reviewed patient records.

A judge in Polk County dismissed the case earlier this year after ruling that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a clearly defined and widely accepted public policy that protected their activities in Glenwood and that they had not proven that they had acted as whistleblowers and reported their concerns to law enforcement or other public agencies. The plaintiffs have appealed that ruling.