HOSPITAL suspends a FEMALE Doctor for raising her voice against Harassment, Hazing & Discrimination

Doctors are the Captain of the Ship for Health Care.They are the best Patient advocates. Hospital Administration with the support of nurses make policies and regulations pertaining to patient care. Harassment and Hazing of doctors with Gender & Racial discrimination is prevalent in Health Care. Nurses have a Union and this makes them a strong organization. I was harassed, hazed and discriminated by some nurses at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns in San Diego, California. In addition to a heavy workload of 8 to 10 deliveries in a 13 hour night shift, I had to put up with this toxic behavior in Labor and Delivery for 3 continuous nights a week in the last 4 months. I reported this to my boss, nurse manager and CEO and received no reply from the CEO. My boss told me to accept this toxic culture as it was in place already for several years with several female doctors going through it and accepting it. I sent an assertive email to CEO and the response was a suspension of my privileges in the middle of the night on a weekend. . The Chief of Staff, Dr. Christopher Morache (psychiatrist) advises me to go through Psychological evaluation and tells me that I will FAIL it anyway. As a Psychiatrist, He should speak with me and ask me my issues and see how the situation can be resolved. Do you feel that raising my voice against harassment and discrimination deserves a suspenson and end of my medical career by National Practitioner Data Bank and Medical Board of California reporting? If the answer is NO, then please sign my petition. This is not just for me, but to help prevent such unfair punishments to physicians or anyone else in the future. This is ABUSE OF POWER.

As Female physicians, we carry a heavy burden. We are not only paid less for equal work, we are also treated drastically differently then our male counterparts, despite having the same level of training (and sometimes even more) as our male colleagues. This is a normal cultural norm in the American Medical System that must change, considering more and more females are filling the voids of the hysician shortage. 

Health care corporations have bylaws that give them the power of dictatorship. They create fear in doctors and bring about mental trauma through unfair medical executive meetings and decisions. There is no freedom of speech. When you raise your voice against injustice, or the stress of hazing and harassment you are going through due to being bullied by nurses or by senior medical staff in administration, you get suspended. They report lies to National Practitioner Data Bank and Medical Board of California so that you are never again able to find a job or have a license. This is the Hitlerism that needs to end.

Laws need to change:

1)Medical Executive Committee and CEO of a Hospital cannot suspend a doctor without first having a confidential compassionate meeting with the physician involved.The physician should be allowed to have 2 people who will help support the physician.
2)When a physician reports a nursing issue that affects patient care, it must receive top priority and the Nursing manager and another physician in charge must meet with the concerned physician within 24 hours. Patient quality care issue must be corrected within 48 hours
3)If a physician feels harassed, hazed or bullied by a particular nurse more than 2 times, a physician has the right to request that this particular nurse not be assigned to the physician concerned. This is very important to maintain good quality care.
4)Nurses must be assigned to patients based on experience and patient problem complexity. Nurses should not be assigned by the race of the patient. Experienced nurses are normally assigned to white or rich patients.
5)CEO cannot block the physician from the hospital email system without giving the physician 24 hours notice so that the physician can collect emails of communication to protect her in case of a lawsuit or mediation.
6)CEO and administration must reply to physician emails within 24 hours.
7)Hospital Corporations must not report to National Practitioner Data Bank and Medical Board of California unless patient clinical safety is of concern. This must be proven and communicated with the physician involved in a professional and transparent way. Humanity and Compassion dictates that we must also help the physician involved as physician stress and emotional personal issues must be addressed and help physician recover and come back to employment as soon as it is safe for patient care. Hospital Corporations cannot do anything that will harm the livelihood of another physician without proper evaluation and counseling.
8)Nurses and Adminstration will not haze, harass and bully physicians. This is mandatory for the health of the physician and therefore for patient safety. This requires that Health Care must be led by physicians.

Healthy and Happy physicians leads to Healthy and Happy patients. Frustrated, bullied and harassed physicians leads to increasing mental disorders and suicides among physicians and early physician retirements. The profession gets a bad reputation and students then hesitate to go into the field. Physician shortages cause poor patient access to quality health care.

Let us work together to create a healthy America and a healthy world.