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A Texas doctor who tried to help a hospitalized COVID-19 patient obtain ivermectin said she will appeal a decision handed down today by the Texas Medical Board to publicly reprimand her.
“We’re optimistic,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden told The Defender in an interview today following the board’s unanimous vote.
Bowden, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Houston, Texas, said the board’s reprimand is “seemingly a minor punishment,” as it doesn’t take away her license. She said she’s “basically fighting on principle.”
The board’s move follows a summary judgment issued in March by the State Office of Administrative Hearings, which found that Bowden “behaved unprofessionally and in a disruptive manner” in 2021 when she sought to help a dying COVID-19 patient receive ivermectin.
According to TrialSite News, the board’s reprimand of Bowden is the “finale” of a highly-publicized “test case for how medical dissent is handled in the aftermath of a polarized pandemic.”
However, Bowden told The Defender she’s not done fighting. She said she also plans to file two related lawsuits against the state medical board and its members. She said:
“I’m not the only doctor who was targeted during the pandemic for using ivermectin and going against the narrative. Multiple other doctors were, too. And so I’m fighting for them.
“I’m also fighting for patients because this is boiled down to the fact that a patient tried to get a second opinion outside of the hospital. They sued the hospital because the hospital would not allow that. They actually won the suit, and the hospital had a court order to grant me emergency temporary privileges.”
In posts on X, Bowden recounted what led up to the board’s action against her:
The TX Medic@l Bo@rd will publicly reprimand me today at 8:15am CST. Almost 4 years ago, I received a call from the wife of Jason Jones, whose life was hanging on the line at Tex@s Huguley Hospital. I tried to help, but despite a court order, the hospital would not allow it. I… pic.twitter.com/P9baIgHcYx
— Mary Talley Bowden MD (@MdBreathe) October 17, 2025
According to Bowden, she received a “frantic” phone call from the wife of Jason Jones, a Tarrant County deputy sheriff. He had COVID-19 and was at Texas Huguley Hospital, where the staff were discussing hospice, given his condition.
Jones’ wife wanted to try ivermectin, but the hospital refused. So the family sued the hospital and obtained a court order allowing Bowden, by way of her nurse, to deliver ivermectin to him in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU).
An appeals court stayed the trial court’s order, but Bowden told the Dallas Express that the email notifying her of the stay order was sent to her lawyer’s junk mail.
Because she didn’t know about the stay, Bowden sent a nurse to Huguley to administer the medicine in pill form. Hospital staff turned away the nurse. Bowden posted on X screenshots of texts showing that she did not intend to defy the stay order.
Jones, whose wife later applied ivermectin topically to her husband’s back, went home in May 2022 after roughly seven months in the hospital’s ICU. He died on April 11, 2023.
Not a ‘single expert’ would testify against Bowden
According to Bowden, the board’s case against her lacks a strong foundation. “They started off with four charges and now they went down to one,” she said.
The board was unable to find a “single expert” who would testify against her, she said. “They tried three times and failed.”
In a Jan. 11 post on X, Bowden said the board spent over $30,000 attempting to secure experts.
No one from the hospital spoke as a witness against Bowden.
The board also had no evidence showing that Bowden’s actions disrupted the hospital. “In fact,” Bowden said, “we had a video showing that everything was very calm at the hospital, but they’re claiming that I put the public in danger by sending a nurse to the ICU waiting room.”
In today’s board meeting, the board did not permit Bowden’s attorney to be present, Bowden said. “So I was speaking without my attorneys present.”
Bowden said she has spent over $250,000 to fight the board’s claims against her. However, she said, “I have somebody funding my legal fees going forward, so I’m not worried about that.”
Bowden and other doctors to sue medical board for restricting free speech
Bowden shared details of two related lawsuits she plans to file against the board and its members. In the first, Bowden and three other physicians are suing the Federation of State Medical Boards, the Texas Medical Board and its president, Dr. Sherif Zaafran, for restricting their right to free speech.
She said:
“They basically sent a directive to every state medical board in the country telling them how to go after doctors for spreading misinformation. And so part of my difficulties with the medical board has been a free speech issue.”
The second lawsuit is against the Texas State Medical Board for violating Bowden’s due process rights during its case against her. According to Bowden, the board failed to do a proper investigation when the case began.
“They’re supposed to do a preliminary investigation to figure out what the facts are before they put you through all this,” she said. “But they did not interview the patient’s wife. They didn’t interview the lawyer. They didn’t interview the nurse that went to the hospital.”
Instead, the board “just took the hospital’s complaint at face value.”
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Bowden plans to work with legislators ‘to prevent this from happening again’
Bowden said she also plans to work with lawmakers to pass legislation that would ensure that hospitalized patients like Jones would never have to sue a hospital to be able to get a second opinion from an outside doctor.
“I’m going to work with legislators to try to prevent this from happening again,” Bowden said.
The bill, which Bowden wants to call the “Second Opinion Act,” has yet to be introduced. If passed, the measure would require hospitals to allow patients to bring in any licensed physician whose license is in good standing to consult on their care.
“Patients should have the right to have the doctors that they know and trust treat them, no matter where they are,” Bowden said.
Under current law, doctors may be barred from practicing medicine at hospitals unless granted certain privileges by a court, Bowden said. “You could end up in a hospital very easily where your doctor does not have privileges, and then you are cut off from the doctor who knows you best.”
Doctors should easily get hospital privileges if their patient is receiving hospital care, Bowden said.
She pointed out that during the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors were regularly granted emergency privileges. “It was a same-day process. It does not need to be complicated.”
If doctors are “safe enough to have a license in Texas, they should be safe enough to practice in the hospital,” she said.
Related articles in The Defender
- Exclusive: Dr. Mary Talley Bowden Shares Why She Sued Hospital That Suspended Her for Treating COVID Patients With Ivermectin
- Doctors Sue FDA, Allege Crusade Against Ivermectin ‘Unlawfully Interfered’ With Their Ability to Treat Patients
- FDA ‘Unquestionably’ Overstepped Authority With War on Ivermectin, DOJ Attorney Admits
- Federation of State Medical Boards Attacks Physicians Over COVID ‘Misinformation’ — Who’s Behind It?
