Back in 2013, a Northern Virginia man went in for a colonoscopy and decided to record his doctor’s post-op instructions on his cell phone since he would still be recovering from the effects of sedation afterwards. However, when he listened on the way home, he discovered that while he was under sedation, the anesthesiologist and the surgeon trashed him and planned to deceive him after the surgery. He was so outraged that he filed a lawsuit for defamation and medical malpractice. Earlier this week, a Fairfax County jury awarded the man $500,000 in damages.
The patient, identified only as “D. B.,” arrived at gastroenterologist Soloman Shah’s office in Reston in April 2013. Knowing he’d be under full anesthesia, D. B. decided to record Shah’s instructions on his cell phone so he could listen to them while on the way back home to Vienna. But when he hit play, he discovered that Shah and the anesthesiologist, Tiffany Ingham, took advantage of his sedation to trash him. The Washington Post managed to get a clip of what the patient recorded on his phone. Listen here.
Just after D. B. went under, Ingham questioned his manhood. She said that after only five minutes of talking to him, “I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit.” Later, a medical assistant expressed concern about a rash on D. B.’s genitals; D. B. had mentioned it during pre-op. Ingham told the assistant to be careful in case she rubbed up against it lest she get “some syphilis on your arm or something.” A few seconds later, Ingham told the assistant that D. B. probably had “tuberculosis of the penis,” so touching him wouldn’t be an issue after all. Shah got in on the act, musing that “as long as it’s not Ebola,” the assistant should be fine.
When the assistant mentioned that D. B. got nervous when the IV was being set in his arm before sedation, Ingham harrumphed, “Well, why are you looking then, retard?” Later, Ingham and Shah joked about their patients’ seeming desire to have medical problems–“the Northern Virginia syndrome,” as Shah put it. Apparently Ingham thought she could satisfy this “desire” by putting a false diagnosis of hemorrhoids on his chart.
They also discussed lying to D. B. and staying away from him after he came out of sedation–among other things, they planned to have Shah pretend to get a message on his pager. When Ingham found out D. B. attended Mary Washington College, she wondered if he was gay, since MWC used to be a women’s school. Remember, folks, all of this happened while D. B. was under sedation.
When D. B. heard this, he did what any rational person would do upon hearing this–he hit the ceiling. He also sued Ingham, Shah, and their practices, seeking $1.75 million in damages. Incredibly, Shah was severed from the case on the first day of last week’s trial. Ingham’s lawyers tried to get the recording thrown out, but Virginia is a “one-party consent” state, meaning only one person in the conversation needs to agree before someone hits the record button. Normally, comments between doctors would be privileged in any event. However, according to defamation lawyer Lee Berlik, there were as many as three other people in the room, and the discussion went well beyond the scope of the procedure.
For all intents and purposes, once the judge allowed the tape into evidence, it was the end of the ballgame. The only question was how big the final reward would be. Ultimately, the jury awarded D. B. $300,000 in actual damages–$100,000 for defamation and $200,000 for malpractice–and $200,000 in punitive damages. It looks like Ingham will have to pay a good chunk of that bill out of her own pocket; she will be responsible for $150,000 of the punitive damages. One juror said that he and his colleagues felt they had to give D. B. something in order to send the message that Ingham’s behavior was unacceptable and “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Ingham moved to a practice in Tavares, Florida after the surgery, but at last report she wasn’t working there anymore. She also isn’t returning any calls. There’s no word yet on whether the Virginia Board of Medicine is investigating her. But even if she isn’t, this tape looks like a career-ender for her. It’s hard to believe any practice would be desperate enough to employ a doctor who thinks it’s remotely okay to trash a patient just because he or she is under sedation.
