FIRE the Hospital CEO & VP Who Let a Doctor Sexually Abuse 12 Patients

  • by: Erin Vance
  • recipient: Board of Trustees, Mid-Columbia Medical Center; Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital Board of Directors, Oregon
When I went under anesthesia at Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles, Oregon, I thought I would be safe in the hands of the doctors there. But I wasn't. While I was lying incapacitated, I was sexually assaulted by anesthesiologist Dr. Frederick Field. I found out later I was one of 12 women to have been targeted by him.

This doctor should have been stopped long before I was wheeled into an operating room. He’d been reported by another patient years before he targeted me.

But the hospital's CEO, Duane Francis, and the hospital's Vice President, Diane Storby, knew about the allegations against this predator and did nothing.

Please sign my petition to FIRE CEO Duane Francis and VP Diane Storby for failing to protect patients against a serial predator!

In my civil lawsuit, a mountain of evidence was found indicating the Francis knew about the anesthesiologist's actions but did nothing. Actually, he did worse than nothing: He not only declined to report it to someone, after he was arrested he actively misled police.

Our jury found the hospital guilty of negligence and battery, but found the CEO and VP not guilty. Francis is set to retire in October, but we need the Board of Trustees to know that replacing him with another person groomed from the inside, someone who may let patient abuse like this continue to slide by, isn't acceptable. 

A hospital is an entity, a corporation. If any other corporation were found guilty of negligence and battery in court and forced to pay millions of dollars in damages to victims, *someone* would be held accountable. But not at this hospital. There have been zero public ramifications for Francis and Storby's actions.

For more on the epidemic of physician sexual abuse, see AJC's feature.

Even something as innocuous as a sports team fires the head coach if they have successive losing seasons. So if a hospital is represented by a CEO, should not that CEO take the fall if the hospital is found guilty in repeated trials?

I want there to be accountability. This is a small community of less than 15,000 people, county-wide. We do not deserve to have abuse be tolerated. Please sign my petition to FIRE CEO Duane Francis and VP Diane Francis for failing to protect patients against a serial predator.

This petition targets Mid-Columbia Medical Center's Board of Trustees. It also targets Oregon Health Sciences University Hospital's (OHSU) Board of Directors, beause of the two hospitals' close collaboration and affiliation.
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