Although several trustees of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic hold positions at other organizations related to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, DHMC Public Affairs Manager Clarence Adams said there are "no conflicts of interest" in DHMC's hiring practices. DHMC is required to disclose all business and professional interactions between itself and its trustees, according to state law.
DHMC oversees the DHC, along with the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, N.H., Dartmouth Medical School and the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt.
Some members of the DHC Board of Trustees hold official positions at either the Clinic or its affiliate departments, including Trustee Dale Vidal, who serves as DHMC's Section Chief of Plastic Surgery, according to the DHMC website,
Several other trustees of DHMC also hold appointments at various departments of the Medical Center. DHMC Trustee Wiley Souba is also the dean of the Medical School at Dartmouth College and a professor in the Department of Surgery; Wayne Granquist, a trustee of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, is the former chair of DHC and currently serves as the chair of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health and the vice-chair of DHMC.
Adams told The Dartmouth that these appointments have been publicly disclosed to the public and to the appropriate authorities.
"We've informed, and we have done this several times in the past," he said.
Board members, directors and trustees of organizations like the DHC are allowed to maintain business dealings that involve "direct or indirect financial interests" as long as the institutions disclose such relationships publicly, according to the Guidebook of New Hampshire Charitable Nonprofit Organizations produced by the N.H. attorney general's office.
Under N.H, law, institutions are expected to disclose business transactions over $5,000 through legal notice in newspapers as well as filings with the attorney general's office, according to the guidebook.
Adams noted the overlapping relationships between Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic, Dartmouth Medical School and the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, and he emphasized that these institutes work interdependently and "share common goals."
"There's no one acting for personal gain for this, or for profit, so there is no conflict of interest," Adams said.
Former N.H. Rep. Gordon Allen, D-Antrim, who sponsored the bill that established the N.H. law that calls for disclosure in these instances, told the Union Leader that he chose to sponsor the bill after seeing "some pretty ugly stuff and some significant self-dealing," particularly in sales to non-profits, which he said strongly opposed the bill.
"I still feel very strongly the nonprofit sector has a special responsibility to be pure," Allen told the Union Leader. "If someone is going to give money to you, you want them to feel confident."
The Union Leader also reported instances of trustees in other institutes engaging in business dealings with their parent organizations, and included a note by the DHC citing its "long-standing relationship with Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and Dartmouth Medical School," which said that the "resulting transactions are not subject to state law."
Staff reporter Angie Yang contributed reporting to this article.