Review praised vaccine director's leadership before firing

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Before a top Tennessee health official recommended firing the state's former vaccine director over claims that include shortcomings in her leadership, her supervisor had praised her “strong leadership” as recently as last month while her program faced “very intense scrutiny and performance expectations,” according to a state job performance evaluation circulated publicly on her behalf.

The interim performance review sheds additional light on the circumstances leading up to the July 12 termination of Dr. Michelle Fiscus, who has spent the last week speaking nationally in rebuttal to a firing she argues was political appeasement for Republican lawmakers who were fuming over the department's COVID-19 vaccine outreach efforts for eligible minors.

In a July 9 letter, Tennessee's chief medical officer, Tim Jones, said Michelle Fiscus should be removed due to complaints about her leadership approach and her handling of a letter explaining vaccination rights of minors for COVID-19 shots, which helped prompt the backlash from lawmakers. The Department of Health released her personnel file, including the firing recommendation letter, in response to public records requests from news outlets.

Tennessee officials didn't include her performance reviews, which are exempted under state public records law, but Fiscus' husband Brad released them in rebuttal. Several years' worth of them show her performance was deemed “outstanding," including for October 2019 through September 2020. Over the weekend, Brad Fiscus said they located two more recent interim evaluations. One followed a legislative meeting last month that put the department in the hot seat over its childhood vaccine messaging efforts.

That meeting is briefly mentioned in the June performance review by Fiscus' supervisor, state epidemiologist John...