Has California, the mother of many trends in the trendy business of healthcare inaugurated a new way of dealing with "obstructionist" whistleblower physicians? Dr. Michael Fitzgibbons, a reputedly mild mannered, Clark Kentish, Republican physician in southern California was arrested in the parking lot of a Santa Ana hospital and charged with the possession with a loaded firearm, carrying a concealed weapon and brandishing a weapon. He was booked. His car was confiscated. He was strip searched and released on his own recognizance. This followed an apparently anonymous 911 tip to the Santa Ana Police Department that a person wearing black gloves and driving Dr. Fitzgibbon's brown camry, was wildly waiving a pistol while driving the car through the streets of Santa Ana.
Dr. Fitzsimmons claimed that he owned neither the gun nor the black gloves found in his car by the police was framed by someone upset with his opposition to the owner of Western Medical Center, Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc. ("IHHI"). The Orange County District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute the case because of a lack of evidence. They had the defendant, the car, the gun, the black gun. They apparently did not have the witness.
Western Medical Center is a rather seedy, run down facility, that was one of three Orange County hospitals sold to IHHI by Tenet Corp. The hospital serves mostly working class and poor residents who do not have health insurance. Dr. Fitzgibbons is the head of infections diseases at the facility. Frustrated by IHHI's refusal to fund capital improvements in the facility, Dr. Fitzsimmons began a campaign of public criticism of the facility, its owner, and an investor in the owner, Dr. Kali P. Chaudhuri, asserting that they were not financially viable and that they were more interested in closing the hospital and selling the real estate than in maintaining the facility.
IHHI in turn sued Dr. Fitzgibbons for slander and interfering in the company's business. Last December, Dr. Fitzsimmons refused to accept IHHI's offer to settle the lawsuit, if he agreed to pay his own attorneys fees. Dr. Fitzgibbons persisted and won the lawsuit. On June 14, the judge in the case determined that the doctor had been truthful in his statements about the finances, but was exercising free speech rights in an effort of ensure quality patient care at Western Medical Center and that the IHHI lawsuit was a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Before he had a chance to celebrate, he was in hand cuffs. If this trend continues it may provide a whole new career opportunity for those unemployed barbarians in the Capital One commercials.
Just a note to correct the spelling of my name: Fitzgibbons, not Fitzsimmons. In addition, to the false charges for 'brandishing' a weapon, a bag of 'Ecstasy' was planted in my car and my cars' tires were slashed, resulting in my daughter's car flipping on the Garden Grove Freeway and her injury. The police refused to investigate, even though I presented forensic evidence that the slash caused the crash....A new paradigm
Posted by: Michael Fitzgibbons | May 07, 2007 at 10:40 AM