ANESTHESIOLOGIST TRASHES SEDATED PATIENT, PAYS FOR IT LATER

Original Story: chicagotribune.com

Sitting in his surgical gown inside a large medical suite, a Vienna, Virginia, man prepared for his colonoscopy by pressing record on his smartphone, to capture the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure.

But as soon as he pressed play on his way home, he was shocked out of his anesthesia-induced stupor: He found that he had recorded the entire examination, and that the surgical team had mocked and insulted him as soon as he drifted off to sleep. An Atlanta slander lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.

And in addition to their vicious commentary, the doctors discussed avoiding the man after the colonoscopy, instructing an assistant to lie to him, and then placed a false diagnosis on his chart.

"After five minutes of talking to you in pre-op," the anesthesiologist told the sedated patient, "I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit," she was recorded saying.

When a medical assistant noted the man had a rash, the anesthesiologist warned her not to touch it, saying she might get "some syphilis on your arm or something," then added, "It's probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you'll be all right." Michigan medical malpractice attorneys provide aggressive and high quality representation to victims of medical malpractice, severe injuries and catastrophic injuries because they understand both injury law and medicine.

When the assistant noted that the man reported getting queasy when watching a needle placed in his arm, the anesthesiologist remarked on the recording, "Well, why are you looking then, retard?"

There was much more. So the man sued the two doctors and their practices for defamation and medical malpractice and, last week, after a three-day trial, a Fairfax County, Virginia, jury ordered the anesthesiologist and her practice to pay him $500,000.

The plaintiff, identified in court papers only as "D.B.," wanted to maintain his anonymity and did not want to comment about the case, said his attorneys, Mikhael Charnoff and Scott Perry.

The anesthesiologist, Tiffany Ingham, 42, could not be reached for comment, and her attorney, D. Lee Rutland, did not return messages seeking comment. Ingham worked out of the Aisthesis anesthesia practice in Bethesda, Maryland, which the jury ruled should pay $50,000 of the $200,000 in punitive damages it awarded. Officials there did not return a call seeking comment. Ingham no longer works there, an Aisthesis employee said, and state licensing records indicate she has moved to Florida. An anesthesiology practice in Tavares, Florida, said she no longer worked there. Calls to a number believed to be Ingham's were not returned, and there was not an answering machine or voicemail at that number. An Indianapolis libel, slander and defamation lawyer is following this story closely.

On the opening day of the trial last week, the gastroenterologist who performed the colonoscopy, Soloman Shah, 48, was dismissed from the case. Court documents state Shah also made some insulting remarks — "As long as it's not Ebola, you're okay," Shah was recorded saying during the rash discussion — and did not discourage Ingham from her comments or actions, which included writing on the man's chart that he had hemorrhoids, when he did not.

Neither Shah, who did not return a message left at his office, nor the lawyers on either side would comment.

The lawyers also would not discuss whether Ingham or Shah faced disciplinary action from the Virginia Board of Medicine. No actions are listed against either on the board's website. A Chicago medical malpractice attorney represents victims injured in medical malpractice cases.

The jury awarded the man $100,000 for defamation — $50,000 each for the comments about the man having syphilis and tuberculosis — and $200,000 for medical malpractice, as well as the $200,000 in punitive damages. Though the remarks by Ingham and Shah perhaps did not leave the operating room in Reston, experts in libel and slander said defamation does not have to be widely published, merely said by one party to another and understood by the second party to be fact, when it is not.

"I've never heard of a case like this," said Lee Berlik, a Reston lawyer who specializes in defamation law. He said comments between doctors typically would be privileged, but the Vienna man claimed his recording showed there was at least one and as many as three other people in the room during the procedure, and that they were discussing matters beyond the scope of the colonoscopy.

"Usually, all [legal] publication requires is publication to someone other than the plaintiff," Berlik said. "If one of the doctors said to someone else in the room that this guy had syphilis and tuberculosis, and that person believed it, that could be a claim. Then it's up to the jury to decide, were the statements literal assertions of fact? The jury apparently was just so offended at this unprofessional behavior that they're going to give the plaintiff a win. That's what happens in the real world."

One of the jurors, Farid Khairzada, said that "there was not much defense, because everything was on tape." He said that the man's attorneys asked for $1.75 million and that the $500,000 award was a compromise between one juror who felt the man deserved nothing and at least one who felt he deserved more.

"We finally came to a conclusion," Khairzada said, "that we have to give him something, just to make sure that this doesn't happen again."

The colonoscopy took place in Shah's surgical suite on April 18, 2013, according to the man's lawsuit. While being prepped for the procedure, the man apparently told Ingham that he had passed out previously while having blood drawn and that he was taking medication for a mild rash on his genitals. A Salt Lake City medical malpractice lawyer is following this story closely.

Because he was going to be fully anesthetized, the man decided to turn on his cellphone's audio recorder before the procedure so it would be on to capture the doctor's post-operation instructions, the suit states. But the man's phone, in his pants, was placed beneath him under the operating table and inadvertently recorded the audio of the entire procedure, court records show. The doctors' attorneys argued that the recording was illegal, but the man's attorneys noted that Virginia is a "one-party consent" state, meaning only one person involved in a conversation need agree to the recording.

The recording captured Ingham mocking the amount of anesthetic needed to sedate the man, the lawsuit states, and Shah then commented that another doctor they both knew "would eat him for lunch."

The discussion soon turned to the rash on the man's penis, followed by the comments implying the man had syphilis or tuberculosis. The doctors then discussed "misleading and avoiding" the man after he awoke, and Shah reportedly told an assistant to convince the man that he had spoken with Shah and "you just don't remember it." Ingham suggested Shah receive an urgent "fake page" and said, "I've done the fake page before," the complaint states. "Round and round we go. Wheel of annoying patients we go. Where it'll land, nobody knows," Ingham reportedly said.

Ingham then mocked the man for attending Mary Washington College, once an all-women's school, and wondered aloud whether her patient was gay, the suit states. Then the anesthesiologist said, "I'm going to mark 'hemorrhoids' even though we don't see them and probably won't," and did write a diagnosis of hemorrhoids on the man's chart, which the lawsuit said was a falsification of medical records.

After declaring the patient a "big wimp," Ingham reportedly said: "People are into their medical problems. They need to have medical problems."

Shah replied, "I call it the Northern Virginia syndrome," according to the suit.

The doctors argued that the Vienna man did not suffer any physical injury or miss any days of work. The man's complaint said that he was "verbally brutalized" and suffered anxiety, embarrassment and loss of sleep for several months.

"These types of conversations," testified Kathryn McGoldrick, former president of the Academy of Anesthesiology, "are not only offensive but frankly stupid because we can never be certain that our patients are asleep and wouldn't have recall."

Sharrod Plans to Sue Blogger

Associated Press

 

 

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. "He had to know that he was targeting me," she said.

Breitbart did not immediately respond to a call or e-mails seeking comment. He has said he posted the portion of the speech where she expresses reservations about helping the white farmer to prove that racism exists in the NAACP, which had just demanded that the tea party movement renounce any bigoted elements. Some members of the NAACP audience appeared to approve when Sherrod described her reluctance to help the farmer.

The farmer came forward after Sherrod resigned, saying she ended up helping save his farm.

Vilsack and President Barack Obama later called Sherrod to apologize for her hasty ouster. Obama said Thursday that Sherrod "deserves better than what happened last week."

Addressing the National Urban League, he said the full story Sherrod was trying to tell "is exactly the kind of story we need to hear in America."

Obama has acknowledged that people in his administration overreacted without having full information, and says part of the blame lies with a media culture that seeks conflict but not all the facts.

At the journalists convention, Sherrod was asked what could be done to ensure accurate coverage as conservatives like Breitbart attack the NAACP and other liberal groups.

Sherrod, 62, responded that members of her generation who were in the civil rights movement "tried too much to shield that hurt and pain from younger people. We have to do a better job of helping those individuals who get these positions, in the media, in educational institutions, in the presidency, we have to make sure they understand the history so they can do a better job."

She said Obama is one of those who need a history lesson.

"That's why I invited him to southwest Georgia. I need to take him around and show him some of that history," Sherrod said.

Sherrod said the description of the new job she has been offered in the office of advocacy and outreach was a "draft," and she questioned whether any money had been budgeted for its programs.

"I have many, many questions before I can make a decision," she said.

Despite her experience, Sherrod said she believes the country can heal its racial divisions — if people are willing to confront the issue.

"Young African-Americans, young whites, too, we've done such a job of trying to be mainstream that we push things under the rug that we need to talk about. And then we get to situations like this," she said.

"I truly believe that we can come together in this country. But you don't (come together) by not talking to each other. You don't get there by pushing things under the rug."

Sherrod said her faulty firing should not be blamed on all media.

Before the full video was released, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Sherrod should be fired, and others called her speech racist. O'Reilly later apologized.

"They had a chance to get the facts out, and they weren't interested," Sherrod said.

She said she declined to give Fox an interview because she believed they were not interested in pursuing the truth. "They would have twisted it," she said.

A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Doctor Appeals Overturn of Libel Judgment

St. Louis Today

A doctor who won a $10 million judgment last year in a libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times is appealing a decision by a Florida judge to throw it out.

Dr. Harold "Hal" Kennedy, a St. Louis cardiologist, sued the newspaper over three articles it published in 2003 about Kennedy's departure from a position at a Veterans Affairs medical center near Tampa, Fla.

Kennedy's attorneys argued that the newspaper damaged Kennedy personally and professionally when it published allegations that he had been under investigation.

In August 2009, a Florida jury sided with Kennedy and awarded him $5.14 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

The paper asked a judge to review the verdict. In a two-page order issued June 14, a Florida judge, Anthony Rondolino, said the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to overcome the First Amendment right of free speech.

Rondolino noted that appellate courts created an independent review of jury verdicts in libel cases such as this because of the importance of freedom of speech and press.

Last week, Kennedy appealed the decision to the Florida Second District Court of Appeal.

Kennedy, who grew up in St. Louis, once served as chief of cardiology in St. Louis University Hospital. He also worked as a cardiologist and professor of internal medicine at the Rush Heart Institute in Chicago.

Ira Berkowitz, an attorney here who represented Kennedy at trial, did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.