Dr. Carlos F. Gomez, medical director of the D.C. Pediatric Palliative Care Collaboration is suing Georgetown University for $1.25 million after he was denied staff privileges.
Gomez claims that Georgetown sought him to become a member of the medical staff despite the known fact that he had a past history of substance abuse. Gomez's complaint states that Georgetown rejected his credentialing application in August 2008 "imput[ing] that Dr. Gomez's history of substance abuse had caused harm to his patients." Gomez denies the claim and said that he had been sober for five years and had no malpractice or disciplinary actions against him when he applied to Georgetown.
The two parties settled in January, with Georgetown agreeing to keep his file confidential and to report that privileges were denied based on questions of Dr. Gomez's clinical competency due to his time away from practice.
Gomez claims that Georgetown violated this agreement by reporting to the NPDB that his privileges were denied due to a "diversion of controlled substances."
From an MSP perspective, it will be interesting to see how this case is ruled. We deal with denied applications all the time, but it is surprising to see the alleged settlement reached between the parties and the subsequent NPDB report that stems from this case.
Source: Washington Business Journal
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2009/08/31/story5.html
1 comment:
Gomez is right, they are defaming him. They sought him, they reached an agreement and the stupid Medical staff still reported him to NPDB. I hope he wins the law suit and sets a precedence for more of these law suits to come against the beaurocracy that rules these hospital
DB
Post a Comment