Man Wins $500,000 After Recording Doctors Mocking Him in Surgery
FAIRFAX, Va., June 24 (UPI) — A Virginia man was awarded $500,000 by a jury after his phone recorded an operating team mocking him and putting down a false diagnosis during surgery.
The man, identified by the initials D.B., filed a lawsuit in Fairfax County Court naming anesthesiologist Dr. Tiffany Ingham and her practice after his phone recorded audio during his colonoscopy April 18, 2013.
The audio, which D.B. said was recorded when he captured audio of his post-surgery instructions and forgot to turn off the recording app, features Ingham and other members of the surgery team calling the patient “annoying, a “wuss,” a “retard” and joking about him having “syphilis.”
“And really, after five minutes of talking to you in pre-op, I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit,” Ingham can be heard saying in the recording.
D.B.’s legal team said the recording also featured the doctor putting down a false diagnosis.
“I’m going to mark hemorrhoids, even though we don’t see them and probably won’t,” Ingham says in the recording. “I’m just gonna take a shot in the dark.”
The jury awarded D.B. $500,000 for medical malpractice, punitive damages and defamation.
