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Paul Marik, MD, who has been in a legal battle with his hospital over prescribing ivermectin and other COVID-19 treatments, announced that he resigned from his position at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS).

A statement , the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), said Marik was leaving to "dedicate more time to multiple causes" including the FLCCC.

"This was not an easy decision to make, but I felt it was time to focus my attention and energy to other interests in both academia and public health," Marik said in the statement.

In an emailed statement, Vincent Rhodes, PhD, associate vice president and chief communications & marketing officer for EVMS, confirmed that Marik "resigned his position at EVMS effective December 31 to pursue other interests."

It's not clear whether Marik still has a position at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. A spokesperson for Sentara Health did not return a request for comment as of press time.

Marik and the hospital have been embroiled in a legal battle over prescribing certain treatments for COVID-19, including ivermectin.

Marik filed a lawsuit against the hospital on November 9 over its ban on certain therapies. That same day, a paper Marik had published on his MATH+ Hospital Treatment Protocol for COVID-19 was retracted after Sentara raised concerns about it with the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine.

The cited a communication it received from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital that questioned "the accuracy of COVID-19 hospital mortality data reported in the article pertaining to Sentara."

According to an excerpt of Sentara's communication published in the retraction notice, the hospital "conducted a careful review of our data for patients with COVID-19 from March 22, 2020 to July 20, 2020, which shows that among the 191 patients referenced in Table 2 that the mortality rate was 10.5%, rather than 6.1%. In addition, of those 191 patients, only 73 patients (38.2%) received at least 1 of the 4 MATH+ therapies, and their mortality rate was 24.7%. Only 25 of 191 patients (13.1%) received all 4 MATH+ therapies, and their mortality rate was 28%."

After that, the saga continued. On November 20, Marik arrived at work at Sentara to find a note on his desk stating that his hospital privileges had been suspended for 14 days.

On November 23, a judge in Virginia granted part of Sentara's motion to dismiss Marik's case, but it allowed one of Marik's claims to proceed. The status of the lawsuit is not clear, and Marik's lawyer did not return a request for comment as of press time.

This isn't the first time one of Marik's treatment protocols has been the source of controversy in the critical care medicine community. He developed the HAT protocol for sepsis -- a combination of hydrocortisone, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and thiamine. A 2017 observational study on the protocol, , garnered excitement, but the findings weren't borne out in subsequent clinical trials.

Marik was a professor of medicine and the chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at EVMS, where he started in 2009, and earned tenure in 2014, according to his statement. He started practicing medicine at Baragwanath Hospital in South Africa, then moved to the U.S. in 1992, taking positions at Detroit Receiving Hospital and Wayne State University.

He subsequently held several appointments at other medical schools in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions before arriving at EVMS, his statement noted.

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