The Iowa Dental Board within the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing oversees the state’s dental profession. (Photo by Getty Images; logo courtesy State of Iowa)
Newly disclosed state records show the Iowa dentist convicted of public intoxication after performing a root canal on a patient agreed to surrender his license earlier this year.
Late last year, the Iowa Dental Board charged Paymun Bayati, 59, of Waterloo, with practicing dentistry in a manner that is harmful or detrimental to the public and with violating provisions of Iowa related to the practice of dentistry. The board alleged he posed an “imminent threat” the public and suspended his license on an emergency basis.
In January of this year, a planned board hearing on the matter was canceled and a continuance was approved with no new hearing date established. Until this week, the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing published no additional information in the case.
After the Iowa Capital Dispatch asked DIAL whether it was up to date in publicly posting licensing board information, the agency disclosed that in April the Iowa Dental Board accepted Bayati’s surrender of his license. The agency attributed the failure to post that information to an oversight.
In April, Bayati was tried and convicted of the misdemeanor offense of public intoxication for his actions in connection with the disciplinary case. Police records show that on Dec. 7, 2023, an Anamosa police officer was dispatched to the Anamosa State Penitentiary in reference an impaired person who was trying to drive away from the prison. The officer reported arriving at the prison and meeting with the warden, the deputy warden and Bayati, who was the prison dentist at that time.
The police officer reported Bayati appeared intoxicated and “smelled heavily” of alcohol. Bayati then submitted to a test that allegedly indicated a blood-alcohol level of 0.158 – almost twice the legal limit for driving.
Bayati told the Iowa Capital Dispatch earlier this year that he doesn’t drink and believed someone, probably his dental assistant, tampered with his cup of coffee by pouring isopropyl alcohol into it after he arrived at the prison that morning.