Dr. Gary Tigges, who made national news in recent days after his comments that female doctors “do not work as hard,” has resigned from his leadership positions at Texas Health Plano, the hospital’s president told staff on Wednesday.
Texas Health Plano President Josh Floren wrote in an internal memo that the executive committee of the hospital’s medical board accepted Tigges’ resignation on Tuesday. Tigges had been serving on the medical board since 1999 and was the current chair of the hospital’s credentialing committee. He steps down from both positions.
“This past weekend we learned of comments that Dr. Gary Tigges made to the Dallas Medical Journal regarding physician pay inequities between the genders, which spread quickly on social media,” Floren writes. “His remarks were and remain extremely divisive and have caused a great deal of hurt and concern among the medical staff, the Dallas-Fort Worth medical community and the entire country.”
Floren goes on to say that the comments do not reflect the “opinion or values” of Texas Health. He points out that they were made by an independent physician who wasn’t speaking on behalf of the hospital, and that the executive committee of the medical board “strongly and unanimously disagreed with his comments.” The full memo is at the bottom of this post.
Tigges will remain on medical staff at Texas Health Plano, where he works at the practice he founded in 1996, Plano Internal Medicine Associates.
Over the weekend, Tigges’ comments in the September issue of the Dallas Medical Journal drew viral outrage on social media, eventually leading to coverage from national news outlets like the Washington Post, Fox News, and CNN. Tigges posted an apology on Monday. I covered the story and Tigges’ own apparent Twitter history in a post yesterday.
Here’s the full memo from Floren:
This past weekend we learned of comments that Dr. Gary Tigges made to the Dallas Medical Journal regarding physician pay inequities between the genders, which spread quickly on social media.
His remarks were and remain extremely divisive and have caused a great deal of hurt and concern among the medical staff, the Dallas-Fort Worth medical community and the entire country.
I wanted to assure you that the comments made by Dr. Tigges do not reflect the opinion or values of Texas Health Resources or Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano. These comments were made by an independent physician who was not speaking on behalf of this hospital or our Medical Board.
Yesterday, the Executive Committee of the Medical Board at Texas Health Plano accepted Dr. Tigges’ resignation from his leadership position on the Medical Board and as chair of the credentialing committee. In addition, they strongly and unanimously disagreed with his comments. The Executive Committee and the Texas Health Plano administrative team have worked to develop an environment free of discrimination, including those based on gender, race, creed, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or identification.
On behalf of Texas Health Plano’s leadership team, I thank you for your commitment to Texas Health’s values of Respect, Integrity, Compassion and Excellence in the care and service you provide our community each day.
We will continue to monitor this situation. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely
Josh Floren, FACHE, president, Texas Health Plano
