A California Court of Appeals in Los Angeles has upheld a $4.7 million arbitration award to a skull surgeon in his five-year litigation against Cedars Sinai Medical Center, in which he claimed that the hospital endangered his patients' lives.
Hrayr Shahinian, MD, alleged the hospital failed to properly sterilize his surgical equipment and did not supply him with replacement tools that his delicate brain surgeries require. He claimed his presence on the staff "was met with tremendous resistance from neurosurgeons and others, who perceived (him) as a threat" and that a concerted effort to deny him support and the ability to perform surgery at the hospital ensued.
Shahinian alleged in his complaint that while he was on staff conducting procedures, hospital staff used flash sterilization techniques – said to be used only in rare instances when an instrument is dropped and there is no ready replacement – to clean instruments rather than cleaning them properly. That made his patients vulnerable to a variety of infectious diseases. Other surgeons were not limited in this way, he maintained
"In numerous instances, bioburden (brain matter) was found on surgical instruments supposedly sterilized by Cedars-Sinai," Shahinian said in a news release. "Had they been used, patients would have been vulnerable to a host of infections, including one resembling 'mad cow' disease."
Shahinian, who had been a surgeon in New York before being recruited to Los Angeles in 1996, also alleged that he was pressured to extend overnight stays for his patients "long beyond what was medically necessary to increase revenue for the hospital," and coerced members of the surgical team to testify against him in a malpractice case he recently lost.
The appellate court upheld the lower court award of $508,124 in economic damages, $1,603,650 in emotional distress damages and $2,580,000 in punitive damages. Also, Shahinian voluntarily withdraws from the Cedars-Sinai medical staff and withdraws staff privileges.
Cedars Sinai officials yesterday said as a rule, they don't comment on pending litigation, but decided to do so in this case "to set the record straight in light of Dr. Shahinian's incomplete and inaccurate statements in his recent news release. The hospital is considering a further appeal.
"Although this matter remains pending in the appellate system, Dr. Shahinian has made certain claims about the outcome of the process so far that are incorrect as to what both the arbitrator and Court of Appeal actually decided" the hospital said in a statement.
For example, the arbitrator did not vindicate Shahinian, and found that his competence "was at issue. However she refused to decide one way or the other whether the concerns that Cedars-Sinai harbored about Dr. Shahinian's competence were justified," the hospital statement said.
Additionally, the arbitrator "found that parts of Dr. Shahinian's testimony lacked credibility," and that "last year, in a case having nothing whatever to do with Cedars-Sinai...a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found Dr. Shahinian for both professional negligence and fraud. It awarded over $950,000 against him, including $300,000 in punitive damages."
Los Angeles attorney Philip Baker of Baker, Keener & Nahra, said he was "surprised the hospital made it such a public issue, by appealing it to the Court of Appeal, knowing that there would be disclosure of brain matter and bioburden that remained on instruments. That's a tactical decision I never fully grasped."