A man who was anesthetized for a colonoscopy in Reston, Virginia was surprised to hear a recording on his smartphone of the anesthesiologist and others on the medical team acting like total assholes and mocking him while he was unconscious. According to the Washington Post, he had hit record before going under “to capture the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure.” In the resulting lawsuit, the jury awarded the fellow $100,000 for defamation, $200,000 for medical malpractice, and $200,000 in punitive damages. From the Washington Post:
“After five minutes of talking to you in pre-op,” the anesthesiologist (Tiffany M. Ingham, 42) 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 (on his penis, which he previously mentioned to the Ingham), 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?”
…The discussion soon turned to the rash on the man’s penis, followed by the comments implying that the man had syphilis or tuberculosis. The doctors then discussed “misleading and avoiding” the man after he awoke, and Shah reportedly told an assistant to convince the man that he had spoken with Shah and “you just don’t remember it.” Ingham suggested Shah receive an urgent “fake page” and said, “I’ve done the fake page before,” the complaint states. “Round and round we go. Wheel of annoying patients we go. Where it’ll land, nobody knows,” Ingham reportedly said.
Ingham then mocked the man for attending Mary Washington College, once an all-women’s school, and wondered aloud whether her patient was gay, the suit states. Then the anesthesiologist said, “I’m going to mark ‘hemorrhoids’ even though we don’t see them and probably won’t,” and did write a diagnosis of hemorrhoids on the man’s chart, which the lawsuit said was a falsification of medical records.
“Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her” (Thanks, David Steinberg!)