LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — After less than four months on the job, Lake County’s Public Health officer has resigned.
The Board of Supervisors came out of a Tuesday afternoon closed session to announce that it had accepted the resignation of Public Health Officer Dr. Erik McLaughlin, MD, MPH, effective immediately.
McLaughlin’s tenure is the shortest of any permanently appointed Public Health officer in Lake County in 20 years.
The supervisors hired him on Feb. 15 and he started the job on March 1, succeeding Dr. Gary Pace.
Pace announced his resignation in February 2021 to return to private practice but had continued to offer Public Health officer services on a part-time basis during the recruitment of his successor.
“When Dr. McLaughlin began work with Lake County on March 1, we were truly excited by the possibilities his unique combination of experiences and dedication to working with underserved communities offered,” said Board Chair Eddie Crandell in a statement released by the County Administrative Office later on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, this role did not end up being a long-term fit. Our board is committed to ensuring Lake County residents have strong support as we navigate the next steps of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, and we wish Dr. McLaughlin well in his future endeavors,” Crandell said in the statement.
State law requires counties to have health officers to enforce local health orders and ordinances, and state regulations and statutes relating to public health.
In response to Lake County News’ inquiry about who is to hold the job in the wake of McLaughlin’s departure, Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein said in an email, “More will be announced in the coming days.”
McLaughlin’s three-and-a-half-month-long tenure followed a 12-month recruitment that cost the county approximately $33,800, based on the consultant contract and amendment.
The recruitment flyer said, “The Public Health Department is fortunate to have a very supportive Board of Supervisors and an engaged County Administrative Officer, which has been critical in the County’s ability to be mighty in the face of COVID-19 pandemic.”
However, in April, Carol Huchingson, the county administrative officer, abruptly retired and was succeeded by her assistant, Susan Parker, in a quickly wrapped up recruitment that didn’t involve an outside contractor.
County shows initial support; closed door reviews increase
At the time of his hire, the county praised McLaughlin’s “progressive medical leadership,” consulting background, work as a county medical director in Arizona, and experience and study internationally, including in Australia and Great Britain.
In a statement released on McLaughlin’s hire, Crandell said that McLaughlin’s “two decades of continuous medical study, research and practice have uniquely prepared him to provide high quality Public Health leadership in Lake County. He brings both global insights and deep understanding of rural medicine.”
County officials also touted McLaughlin’s credentials as a board certified family medicine physician licensed in eight states.
However, what he wasn’t at that time was licensed to practice medicine in California, a fact the county largely glossed over.
Part of that was due to the fact that he received his medical degree in November 2005 from Saint Christopher’s College of Medicine in Dakar, Senegal, a school that is not included in a list of approved institutions by the Medical Board of California.
McLaughlin’s hire was contingent on the state granting him licensure, and that is what the Medical Board of California did on Feb. 24.
That’s despite the fact that other medical boards across the country and abroad had denied such licensure to some of the school’s graduates due to issues unearthed in late 2005 in Great Britain that led to the school being deemed unacceptable for registration and not recognized by that country’s General Medical Council.
During a Tuesday morning update from the Health Services Department, which in the past has featured input from McLaughlin on health issues such as COVID-19, McLaughlin was not present. Instead, it was led by Director Jonathan Portney, who only briefly mentioned COVID-19 — noting it’s still active in the community. Portney did not refer to McLaughlin during the discussion.
In past appearances before the board McLaughlin appeared by Zoom from his Las Vegas home, so it’s unclear if he at any point had spent any significant time in Lake County.
That’s because the county said McLaughlin — who the board hired at an 80% time base of 32 hours per week — would perform much of his work remotely “as is very common practice for medical professionals serving in Public Health leadership capacities.”
It’s been the accepted practice for the Board of Supervisors to conduct annual closed-door performance reviews with county department heads.
In McLaughlin’s case, he’d had five such reviews since he began work with the county.
The first was on March 8, the second on May 10, and then one each over the last three meetings — June 7, June 14 and again on Tuesday.
The Public Health officer is one of the highest-paid jobs in county government, at a range of $186,492 to $226,680 annually, according to the county’s job description.
However, thanks to the county’s millions of dollars in raises that are still being rolled out, that salary will rise to $194,016 to $235,840 annually as of July 1.
As of Tuesday night, the Public Health officer job was not posted as open on the county’s Human Resource’s webpage.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.