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THREE DOCTORS SUE BAY PINES VA IN BIAS DISPUTE
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"A number of very good doctors and employees
are afraid
to come forward with information they have
regarding
discriminatory or retaliatory conduct."
For more about the troubled Bay Pine VA
facility, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=bay+pines&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.sptimes.com/
2007/09/01/Southpinellas/Docto
rs_sue_in_VA_cen.shtml
Story below:
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Doctors sue in VA center bias dispute
The three women allege that Bay Pines in St. Petersburg retaliated
against them.
By JACOB H. FRIES, Times Staff Writer
ST. PETERSBURG - Supervisors at Bay Pines VA Medical Center tried to
force out three female doctors after they complained about age, gender
and religious discrimination, according to a federal lawsuit filed this
week.
The supervisors, intent on discouraging discrimination claims, urged
other employees to file complaints against the doctors, so they could
suspend and ultimately fire them, the lawsuit alleges. The three doctors
- Claudia Cote, Diane Gowski and Sally Zachariah - are all longtime
employees at the hospital.
As part of the retaliatory campaign, the supervisors also denied the
doctors leadership positions, changed their duties and gave them lower
evaluations, the suit says. They also are accused of rifling through one
of the doctor's files and personal diaries in search of damaging
material.
"The information that has been reported to us is disturbing," Joe Magri,
the attorney representing them, said on Friday.
The suit names VA Secretary R. James Nicholson as the defendant, but
alleges three supervisors retaliated against the doctors. The
supervisors were identified as George Van Buskirk, Lithium Lin and
Sharachandra Patel.
Bay Pines and VA officials did not return phone messages seeking
comment.
The women became targets because they had previously filed equal
employment opportunity complaints alleging discrimination, the suit
says.
Cote, a pulmonary and critical care doctor, has worked at the hospital
since 1996. She filed a claim in 2004, saying she was passed over for
chief of medicine without being interviewed because she is a woman.
Later, she applied to be chief of pulmonary medicine but wasn't
interviewed "due to her gender and reprisal for her complaints," the
suit says.
Gowski, certified in internal medicine, worked at the hospital from 1997
to 1999 and returned in 2002. She claimed in 2005 that she was
reassigned because of her religious beliefs, including her antiabortion
views.
Zachariah, a neurologist at the hospital since 1989, alleged age, gender
and racial discrimination in 2003. The hospital had tried to put the
neurology department under different leadership. The claim was later
settled.
But supervisors searched her personal files and later suspended her
because of alleged research improprieties, the suits says.
"A number of very good doctors and employees are afraid to come forward
with information they have regarding discriminatory or retaliatory
conduct," Magri writes in the lawsuit.
Staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Jacob H. Fries
can be reached at jfries@sptimes.com
or (727) 893-8872.
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Larry Scott --
