Here's the link to the story in the newspaper; Lawyer: ‘red flags’ ignored | The Dalles Chronicle
Lawyer: ‘Red Flags’ Ignored
TIMELINE OF ABUSE
#A timeline of 12 sexual abuse cases that led to the
criminal conviction of Dr. Frederick Field in September 2012 was presented
Wednesday for jurors in the civil suit to read.
#The poster board listing the woman and dates of abuse was
displayed by attorney Gregory Kafoury, on behalf clients Willie Gmeinder and
Erin Vance, both victims from The Dalles. The third plaintiff in the trial that
began Oct. 1 is Sharon Hobbs of Mosier, who is represented by Jan Wyers.
#On Sept. 24, 2007, the first abuse of an employee by
Field, an anesthesiologist, took place during surgery. The woman did not report
this incident until May of 2011.
#The second patient was molested during surgery on Jan. 9,
2008. The woman was the first to report abuse via a telephone call but hospital
administrators say she could not be reached for a follow-up conversation.
#The rape of nurse Tiffany Rager took place on March 14,
2008, and the molestation of another hospital employee occurred on April 2,
2008. Rager testified in court Tuesday and gave permission for her name to be
used in media reports, as did the three plaintiffs.
#Abuse against an employee took place Jan. 18, 2010,
followed by similar incidents involving female patients on Jan. 26, March 25 and
April 5. Vance, also a patient, was molested on December 30 of that year.
#In 2011, Hobbs, a patient, was abused on Jan. 3, and
Gmeinder on Feb. 10. The last incident of molestation occurred Jan. 24 and
involved a co-worker of Field. He was arrested four days later.
#The attorneys for three women molested by Dr. Frederick
Field say the number of victims could have been reduced if hospital officials
had not ignored a series of “red flags” over a three-year period.
#Gregory Kafoury, Mark McDougal and Jason Kafoury, who
work out of a Portland firm that specializes in severe injury cases, have spent
five days arguing that administrators covered up the anesthesiologist’s
behavior. And that set the stage for Field to sexually harass medical staff and
abuse both patients and co-workers, 12 of whom were involved in the criminal
case against him.
#Kafoury said the first report from a female patient
about molestation by Field during surgery was received by the hospital in
January 2008. That complaint was shelved after administrators claimed not to be
able to reach her for a follow-up conversation.
#The attorney said administrators chose not to revisit
that incident when Dick Ohnemus, a nurse in charge of surgical services, wrote a
memo in May 2010 addressing the complaints of several nurses about Fields’
conduct. The women had posted a watch outside of dressing rooms after Field
entered unexpectedly while they were changing clothes several times. Field had
also reportedly fondled the breasts of one nurse while tying her sterile gown in
preparation for surgery.
#That nurse took the stand last week to say that,
although she turned around and kicked Field to get him to back away, she did not
think his behavior qualified as sexual harassment. Only if the anesthesiologist
repeated the action after being told not to do so did she think his behavior
would be a violation of hospital policy.
#Similar statements were made by two other nurses who
were called by Kafoury as witnesses in the trial, which began Oct. 1 and is now
at its midway point.
#“I think every woman has the right to
decide what’s off-limits and what’s not, it’s the interpretation,” said one
nurse.
#The three women said they did not want
to register a formal complaint that would trigger a sexual harassment
investigation. Instead, Ohnemus said he and Dr. Bill Hamilton, vice-president of
medical affairs, met with Field to issue a warning about potential disciplinary
action if he did not stop the behavior.
#Ohnemus and Hamilton said they did not
question other staffers to learn if the problems with Field were more
widespread.
#“He more or less said he was sorry if
something he said or did was misinterpreted and we would have no further
problems with him,” said Ohnemus, who confirmed there had been no further
complaints from nurses.
#Tiffany Rager, a former surgery nurse at
MCMC and one of Field’s victims, testified Tuesday that she resigned from her
post in January 2010 because of the sexually inappropriate conversations and
behavior going in MCMC’s operating rooms. She had begun working at the hospital
in 2006 and said, after registering complaints about being uncomfortable with
the work environment, she was harassed by other medical personnel. She said Dr.
William Hamilton — then still a surgeon — condoned the environment, refused to
work with her. He is a retired surgeon and now serves as vice-president of
medical affairs at the hospital.
#“It’s the type of situation where you
either go with them or you go against them. If you go against them, you are on
the outs,” said Rager.
#Andrew Efaw, one of the attorneys
defending the hospital, pointed out to the jury that Rager now works for a
surgery center that is in direct competition with the hospital. Neither he,
Robert Keating nor Patrick Eidenberg challenged her statements about the conduct
of Hamilton.
#Rager is the sole reported rape victim
of Field, an incident that occurred March 14, 2008, after he gave her medicine
for a headache that put her to sleep. The attack took place at the hospital’s
on-call house, a residence where medical staff had to stay if they were working
after-hours or on weekends and lived longer distances from the hospital.
#Field’s DNA was found on the cushion of
the sofa where Rager said the assault occurred and was a key piece of evidence
used by prosecutors to obtain his admission of guilt in September 2012. He is
currently serving 23 years in prison for the rape and 11 sexual assaults
involving the other women involved in the criminal case.
#Rager said she told another nurse, who
was also a friend, that “something had happened” with Field but did not provide
further details. Neither she nor the other woman reported that conversation to
supervisors at the hospital. Two more of the five employees who were molested
said they told a co-worker at least some of the details of abuse by Field but
none of that information was relayed to administrators.
#One of the employees said she was being
treated by Field for complications related to the spinal block given to her in a
surgery Jan. 18, 2010. She awoke after being sedated for severe nausea to find
him holding her hand on his genitalia. When he saw that she was awake, the woman
said he reached down to a syringe placed in her arm and pressed the plunger to
release more medicine and she fell back asleep.
#When Willie Gmeinder, one of three
plaintiffs in the trial, reported Feb. 10, 2011, that Field had deliberately
rubbed his crotch against her head during surgery and forced her to touch his
genitals, Kafoury said administrators chose not to look at the collective
evidence they did know about.
#Dr. Mark McAllister reported to Hamilton
that Gmeinder had complained about inappropriate touching and was told by him to
relay the incident to Diane Storby, vice president of operations for MCMC.
Several hours later, Field told McAllister over lunch that he had visited
Gmeinder’s room after hearing of her complaint by a nurse and had told her that
the medicine used to sedate her was known to cause sexual hallucinations.
#In response to a question asked by
Kafoury Oct. 9, Hamilton said in his more than 30 years of surgery, involving
nearly 20,000 procedures, he had never heard of anesthesia causing that type of
a side effect.
#Field also told McAllister at lunch that
a patient had filed a similar accusation against him during his medical
residency, which was reported to Storby. In pre-trial testimony she said that
admission had never been investigated.
#Neither Hamilton nor Storby followed up
with Gmeinder to discuss the exact nature of the complaints she recanted after
Field’s visit.
#Hamilton confirmed that he, Ohnemus,
Duane Francis, MCMC chief executive officer, and Storby had met four times in
May 2011 after a former employee came forward with a complaint of abuse during a
2007 surgery. She had told Dr. David Mack that she was uncomfortable with Field
being her anesthesiologist in a subsequent surgery but had not provided further
information about what had happened. Mack had not passed on that information to
anyone due to a lack of information.
#Hamilton and Ohnemus said under oath
Oct. 9 that they were not briefed by Francis or Storby at the 2011 meetings
about the 2008 incident or the potential problem with Field’s residency.
#Hamilton said he did not know the extent
of Gmeinder’s allegations. Ohnemus testified Wednesday that he learned of her
complaints from media reports after Field’s arrest.
#Only Storby and Francis held key pieces
to the puzzle, said Kafoury, and they didn’t piece them together for other
administrators or investigators.
#“In those four meetings did Storby and
Francis say, ‘We need to gather up everything we’ve got, every scrap of paper
that has anything to do with Fred Field, the name of any potential witnesses,
and give those to police. Did anyone ever say that?” Kafoury asked Hamilton, who
replied “No.”
#Kafoury suggested to Hamilton that
Francis and Storby attempted to keep the details of Field’s activities from
becoming public to protect MCMC from “hugely embarrassing and expensive”
consequences.
#Hamilton said he had never seen anyone
at the hospital putting concerns about that type of threat above patient
safety.
#Kafoury conveyed to the jury, through
the questioning of Hamilton and Ohnemus, that if Francis and Storby had been
more forthcoming, many women might have been spared abuse.
#In addition to Gmeinder, his firm is
representing Erin Vance, who was molested during surgery Dec. 30, 2010. The
third plaintiff in the current case is Sharon Hobbs, who was abused during
surgery Jan. 3, 2011. She is represented by attorney Jan Wyers of Hood
River.
#Kafoury and McDougal have five other
clients from the 12 who participated in the criminal case who are awaiting trial
at a later date. Two suits brought by other attorneys were recently settled out
of court for an undisclosed amount of money.
#Attorney Thomas D’Amore of Portland is
representing Nicole Aramejia, a patient formerly of Hood River who now lives in
Minnesota who was molested by Field during a Jan. 26, 2010, surgery at MCMC.
#The women involved in the current trial
are each seeking $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages from MCMC,
whose two top administrators have been accused of engaging in a campaign of
“concealment and deceit” to protect the hospital from liability.
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