The assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has resigned.

Dr. Allen Dobson, who has been a state DHHS employee for a little more than two years, will leave his job at the end of this month, Lynn Bonner reports.

He was a chief lieutenant to Secretary Carmen Hooker Odom. She announced her resignation in May.

Dobson, who lives in Mt. Pleasant, was hired as the state Medicaid director in July 2005.

He has a long association with the department, having been an early champion of Community Care, a Medicaid program that seeks to control costs by coordinating patients' health care.