McCurtain Memorial Hospital CEO Brian Whitfield resigns; CFO Kena Allen named interim CEO
IDABEL, Okla. — McCurtain Memorial Hospital CEO Brian Whitfield has resigned, and the hospital’s chief financial officer, Kena Allen, will run the hospital while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
The hospital’s Board of Trustees announced Friday that it had accepted his resignation. In its statement, the board said Whitfield had endured “months of online criticism, public accusations, and extraordinary scrutiny of his private life.” It said he stepped down because he “could not abide seeing the Hospital’s financial security, and the jobs of the employees and the families they support, jeopardized by the harm that is being done to the Hospital by those who have made it their mission to remove Brian from his position.”
The board said those people had set events in motion “that pose an existential risk to the Hospital.” The statement did not say what those events were or name anyone.
McCurtain Memorial is a 25-bed critical access hospital in Idabel. It also runs rural health clinics in Idabel, Valliant and New Boston, Texas. The New Boston clinic is at 101 Tyson St.
Board praises Whitfield, names Allen
The board thanked Whitfield for “the tremendous job he has done.” It said he took over as CEO in 2022, “at a time of extreme turbulence for the Hospital,” and led it to financial stability “in an extremely challenging time for rural hospitals.”
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Trustees voted to start an immediate search for a full-time CEO and to use outside help to run it, according to the statement. Allen was named interim CEO. The board said she has worked for the hospital for more than three decades, most recently as CFO.
“Kena knows and understands the needs of the Hospital’s employees and the communities they serve, which is one of the hallmarks of a great leader,” the board wrote.
Whitfield promoted Allen to CFO in spring 2022, the hospital said at the time. As CFO she oversaw registration, the business office, medical records, materials management and accounting. She also led the conversion of the hospital’s clinics to federally designated rural health clinics.
“The coming weeks and months will be a time of transition, and Kena, the Board, and the Hospital will all need the community’s grace and support to weather these changes and the events that set them in motion,” the board wrote.
A summer of public criticism
Whitfield joined the hospital in February 2022 as human resources director. In a July 21 statement, the board and hospital administration said Whitfield had “voluntarily disclosed information concerning his past that he was not legally obligated to disclose.” The board said it weighed his qualifications, experience, references and disclosures before naming him to lead the hospital.
That July statement came after the hospital cut about a dozen positions on July 17 in maintenance, the business office, security, nursing administration and other departments. The hospital said the reductions would save about $2 million a year. The statement also answered online claims about executive pay, renovation work and Whitfield’s home.
According to the statement, Whitfield’s pay rose from $169,424 in 2022 to $278,074 in 2025, and it was listed at $262,500 for 2026. The hospital said a member of Whitfield’s family had done work on a hospital community center building at below-market cost, that Whitfield recused himself from approving those payments and that the board approved them. It also said the hospital had not paid for or contributed to his home.
Court cases
Whitfield is a party in two lawsuits filed this fall in McCurtain County District Court.
On Oct. 1, representing himself, he sued Brandi Lynnette Stuart for defamation and false light. Stuart is a former McCurtain County resident who now lives in Iowa. His petition says that since about July she has posted on Facebook and TikTok that he presented fake degrees from Baylor University and the University of Michigan to get the CEO job, collected tuition reimbursement from the hospital for that education, embezzled hospital money, and illegally registered to vote and voted in Oklahoma’s August runoff. Whitfield denies every one of those claims in the petition and asks for more than $75,000.
On Oct. 21, Stuart’s attorney, Eric Grantham of the Stipe Law Firm, asked the court to dismiss the case under the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act, a state law meant to stop lawsuits that target speech on public issues. The motion says Stuart is a private citizen who used social media “to question Plaintiff’s actions in his role and suitability for that role.” It says the petition never quotes or identifies a single post. It also asks the court to order Whitfield to pay her attorney fees and sanctions. District Judge Emily Maxwell has set a hearing on the motion for Dec. 9.
On Oct. 13, Dr. Carol Kerr, a hospitalist who started at McCurtain Memorial in 2025, sued the hospital and Whitfield for breach of contract and defamation. Her petition says she raised concerns about medical necessity, discharge decisions and the risk of improper billing. It says Whitfield fired her May 28 and told her to “get out of my hospital,” while the hospital described her departure as a resignation. The suit says Whitfield later gave a prospective employer in New Mexico false references about her, and that the employer withdrew a job offer. Kerr is seeking $278,460 in contract damages plus other damages. Neither the hospital nor Whitfield had filed a response as of Friday.
The board’s statement does not mention either lawsuit.
“For nearly 75 years, McCurtain Memorial Hospital has served as a cornerstone of healthcare in southeastern Oklahoma,” the board wrote. “It is onward and upward for McCurtain Memorial Hospital.”