Medical Licensing Board Protected FGM Doctor From 2019 Complaint Calling Cutting "Torture"
A doctor's complaint called it "torture." The medical board dismissed it with false claims.
Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) dismissed a a 2019 licensing complaint against Dr. Jumana Nagarwala that called her genital cutting torture by falsely claiming they had already conducted an investigation.
The complaint, COM19-001459, was filed on June 22, 2019 by a board-certified anesthesiologist who identified themselves as “a former physician licensed by the state of Michigan” with “an active medical license in California.” They said Nagarwala’s practice of female genital mutilation on young girls without anesthesia “amounts to torture, for which we forbid on death row inmates.”
They wrote that Nagarwala “has apparently performed over 100 surgeries without anesthesia, over the past 10 years” and implored the Board of Medicine to “take action against this physician.”
The complainant knew the federal case was dead. They attached the DOJ’s 530D letter to Congress, dated April 10, 2019, in which the Department of Justice admitted it had “reluctantly determined” it “lacks a reasonable defense of the provision, as currently worded, and will not pursue an appeal.” State licensing was the only disciplinary path left.
The board took seven months and fourteen days to respond. On February 5, 2020, LARA finally replied. Here is the full substantive content of the letter:
“We have reviewed your correspondence in the above-referenced matter. While we understand your expressed concerns, please be advised our office is unable to proceed with your complaint because the issues identified have previously been reviewed and is being address [sic] in file number COMxx-146169.”
FOIA records identify the author as Department Analyst Debra Wright-Chambers.
File COMxx-146169 was a criminal monitoring file, not an investigation, meaning that all the file did was monitor the federal criminal prosecution. Department Analyst Terri Schrauben opened it on April 18, 2017. Her email that day: “Criminal File #146169 has been opened to monitor the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan.” There was never an investigator assigned.
LARA’s own officials knew what it was. On September 17, 2018, Investigations & Inspections Division Director Jon Campbell emailed a colleague about file 146169: “It appears the investigative file is being closed until witnesses can testify on behalf of the department, thus, this is the only remaining file under the criminal charges.”
The file with actual investigative authority was 43-XX-146153. The Board of Medicine unanimously authorized that investigation in April 2017. Regulation Agent Jennifer Pappas was assigned to it. Assistant Attorney General Bridget K. Smith recommended closing it on July 27, 2018. LARA closed it September 25, 2018. Disposition: “No Action Taken.”
This means that LARA’s justification that “the issues identified have previously been reviewed and is being address” was false. The issue was not reviewed in the file they cited, was not addressed, and was not being actively addressed.
Wright-Chambers left state service in 2025. Under Michigan’s retention policy, the Department of Technology, Management & Budget deletes a departing employee’s emails after 60 days. Whatever internal communications explain how or why she cited a criminal monitoring file instead of the closed investigation are gone.
When I requested the records from file 146169 through FOIA, LARA denied the request. The reason given was that the two files had been “consolidated.” LARA now says 146169 and 146153 were the same file all along.
But in 2020, when a physician asked LARA to investigate the doctor charged in America’s first federal FGM case, LARA treated them as different files. It cited the one with no investigative authority and said nothing about the one that had been closed with no action taken.
LARA, the Attorney General’s office, AAG Bridget K. Smith, and LARA Division Director Jon Campbell did not respond to requests for comment.
As I’ve previously reported, Dr. Nagarwala still holds an active, unrestricted Michigan medical license (No. 4301071795) with no record of discipline. Michigan never held hearings on her license.
This is an ongoing investigation. If you’d like to support this work, you can contribute here: Expose Medical Board for Licensing an FGM Doctor