If I've ever wondered why I didn't go into medicine, I have my answer here. I've been there, Tif. I've been there. A classic case of reverse annoying-person discrimination. (Kidding, sort of.)
The Washington Post reports ...
Dr. Tiffany M. Ingham
Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her
Sitting in his surgical gown inside a large medical suite in Reston, Va., a Vienna 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.
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.”
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 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 M. Ingham, 42, could not be reached for comment, and her attorney, D. Lee Rutland, did not return messages seeking comment.
Keep reading HERE.
UPDATE: The audio has surfaced HERE.
1 comment:
Hometown pride: Dr. McGoldrick, quoted in the last paragraph of the WP article, is Chief of Anesthesiology at the hospital where I work in Westchester, and she's Chair of Anesthesiology at the medical school where I teach. :)
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