When I received my M.D. from New Jersey Medical School, Newark in 1985, I
decided to take up the happy specialty of delivering babies. In 1989, I
finished my ob-gyn residency from Temple University Hospital,
Philadelphia. I graduated in the top 20% of my senior class. I moved down
to Charlotte and started ob-gyn practice, first with a group then solo. I
became board certified in ob-gyn.
On December 1, 1994, I scheduled a laser-laparoscopy on a patient to
alleviate pelvic pain. At the time of surgery, I inadvertently punctured
an artery in her abdomen. I recognized the injury immediately and
performed open surgery with the help of a general and a vascular surgeon.
The patient went home after a few days stay in the hospital. Many experts
later reviewed my case and found that I met the standard of care.
But the Presbyterian hospital used this incident to target me in the worst
manner. They initiated a secretive peer-review of all my cases. On
September 1, 1995, the CEO of Presbyterian Hospital, Charlotte and chief
of the ob-gyn department summoned me to the imposing boardroom of the
hospital. They told me that the hospital had peer-reviewed my 102 charts
and found 24 of them to be ‘problematic". They would not identify these 24
charts or what the "problems" were with each of them. They told me that I
was summarily suspended from the hospital from that very day!
I was the first physician to be suspended from the hospital in 20 years!
The reviewers were either my competitors or employees of the
hospital or both!This was truly a stab in the back,
because I was never given a chance to defend any of those 24 cases.
According to the hospital’s own by-laws, I should have been given written
query for each of those charts. If that were done, they would simply not
have been able to suspend me, since there was nothing wrong with the
charts. They simply wanted to hush up the matter. In fact, the secretary
in the medical staff office offered me the "friendly" advice that I should
resign. Had I done that, there would have been no legal recourse.
I hired a lawyer and went through the "fair hearing" process in the
hospital, which was a laughable exercise in corporate rubber-stamping.
There was nothing "fair" about it. The hospital handpicked the members of
the "hearing panel". None of the members of the panel was even an ob-gyn
physician. Even though two eminent ob-gyn experts testified in my favor,
doctors on the panel voted me down. They were not going to destroy their
long-standing relationship with the hospital! Yet, they had enough
conscience to write in their opinion:
"The sequence of events as presented leaves the distinct impression that
this physician was intimidated. That impression damages the entire
community."
I took the hospital to the state court in Mecklenburg county in January
1996. The court determined that the hospital had violated its by-laws and
ordered the hospital to perform a new peer-review of my charts. Meanwhile
North Carolina Medical Board reviewed my "24 problematic charts" and found
them to be satisfactory. Sadly, the Board decided to stay on the sidelines
while the hospital continued to decimate my career and drag me from court
to court.
The hospital initiated a new review of my charts using two external
reviewers but they knew that I would be vindicated. Therefore, they
simultaneously appealed to the Court of Appeals in Raleigh, North Carolina
against having to do the review. They also went to the State Supreme Court
asking for a stay of the ongoing and almost finished external review in
February 1997. Beyond all reason and logic, the Supreme Court allowed that
to happen. The Court of Appeals ordered in August 1997 that the hospital
should indeed give me a new review in accordance with its by-laws.
American Medical Association and North Carolina Medical Society, in fact
all medical people and entities in this country support an "external"
review of a physician. The by-laws of the hospital allow for an external
review of a physician. But the hospital chose to abandon the external
review that had been going on. For the second time, the hospital selected
internal physicians, employed and otherwise controlled by the hospital, to
review my cases. The marching orders were clear for the reviewers; they
were to find my charts full of "mistakes". They did and justified the
revocation of my privileges.
Dr. E. Albert Reece, chairman and professor at Temple University hospital
ob-gyn department reviewed these cases at my request. He and another board
certified ob-gyn physician personally testified at a hearing in the
hospital in January 1999 that I met the standard of care. Still the
hospital would not listen!
I was the first ob-gyn physician of Asian-Indian heritage in the city of
Charlotte. I felt that discrimination was the real reason for my exclusion
from the hospital. I filed a civil rights suit against the hospital in
January 1999. In June 2000, the federal judge ordered the hospital to
produce to me all the records of ob-gyn physicians to compare with mine.
The hospital is appealing this order to the 4th circuit Court of Appeals
in Richmond, VA.
I still hold full and unrestricted licenses in North Carolina, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania. I have full attending privileges at Carolinas Medical
Center, Charlotte. But because of my suspension from the hospital and
entry of this information in the NPDB, I have been unable to do ob-gyn
work for several years. I had to close my practice in May 1997. My skills
have doubtlessly gone down. My career and social life have been
devastated.
While the hospital has used a million dollars of public money to keep a
good doctor from serving the public, blatantly violated its own by-laws,
the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)
has not questioned the hospital to my knowledge. Many doctors, who have
committed much bigger "errors", have continued to practice there in
perfect comfort.
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