The settlement ends a case brought by the ex-head
of UCLA's orthopedic
surgery department, who says the medical school allowed doctors to take industry payments that
may have compromised patient care.
By Chad Terhune Los Angeles Times FiDA highlight
April 22, 2014, 8:27 p.m.
University of California regents agreed to pay
$10 million to the former chairman of UCLA's
orthopedic surgery department, who had alleged that the well-known medical
school allowed doctors to take industry payments that may have compromised
patient care.
The settlement reached Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court
came just before closing arguments were due to begin in a
whistleblower-retaliation case brought by Dr. Robert Pedowitz, 54, a surgeon who was
recruited to UCLA in 2009 to run the orthopedic surgery department.
In 2012, the surgeon sued UCLA, the UC
regents, fellow surgeons and senior university officials, alleging they failed
to act on his complaints about widespread conflicts of interest and later retaliated against
him for speaking up.
UCLA
denied Pedowitz's allegations, and officials said they found no wrongdoing by
faculty and no evidence that patient care was jeopardized. But the UC system
paid him anyway, saying it wanted to avoid the "substantial expense
and inconvenience" of further litigation.
As department chairman, Pedowitz testified, he
became concerned about colleagues
who had financial ties to medical-device makers or other companies that
could unduly influence their care of patients or taint important medical
research.
He also
alleged that UCLA looked the other way because the university stood to benefit
financially from the success of medical products or drugs developed by its
doctors.
One of the orthopedic surgeons that Pedowitz
complained about testified at trial about receiving $250,000 in consulting fees in 2008 from device
maker Medtronic.
In memos to university officials, Pedowitz raised concerns about the financial
dealings of other doctors as well.
Inside the courtroom Tuesday, Pedowitz sat in the
front row with his wife and daughter as the judge told jurors that a settlement
had been reached. He said he felt vindicated by the outcome.
"These
are serious issues that patients should be worried about,"
Pedowitz said in an interview. "These problems exist in the broader medical system and they are
not restricted to UCLA."
The seven-week trial in downtown Los Angeles offered a rare glimpse
into those potential conflicts at a time when there is growing government scrutiny of industry payments
to doctors.
Starting this fall, the federal Physician
Payments Sunshine Act, part of President Obama's
healthcare law, requires public disclosure of financial relationships between
healthcare companies and physicians.
Many doctors and universities defend
long-standing industry arrangements as essential for carrying out cutting-edge
research and top-flight medical education.
In a statement Tuesday, the UC regents said they
"resolved this lawsuit to end a prolonged conflict and permit UCLA Health
Sciences to refocus on its primary missions of teaching, research, patient care
and community engagement."
The statement added that "multiple
investigations by university officials and independent investigators concluded
that conduct by faculty members was lawful. Patient care was not
compromised."
This latest settlement eclipses a $4.5-million
payout the UC regents made last year to resolve a racial discrimination lawsuit
filed by another UCLA surgeon.
Pedowitz, as part of his settlement, left the
UCLA faculty, effective Tuesday. He had agreed to step down as department
chairman in 2010 after initially voicing his concerns to top UCLA officials. He
filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint in March 2011.
Experts in
medical ethics say the UCLA case shows much more needs to be done within
academia and by government regulators to address potential conflicts of
interest in medicine.
Susan Chimonas, associate director of research at
Columbia
University's Center on Medicine as a Profession, said some medical schools are still
reluctant to take on specialists who bring in considerable money from patients,
medical research and patents on breakthrough products.
"Institutions can be dependent on the money
these big-earning specialties like orthopedic surgery bring in," Chimonas
said. "They are the
cash cows and they can set their terms. This is not the first time I've
heard of medical schools having policies that are not well enforced."
In an interview last week, the chief compliance
officer at the UCLA Health System flatly rejected the notion that the
university didn't enforce its policies or look fully into Pedowitz's
allegations. She also said industry ties are unavoidable at a big medical
school and rules are in place to prevent conflicts.
"We have processes in place to identify
those relationships in a transparent fashion and ensure they don't have any
inappropriate influence on the actions of the university," said Marti
Arvin, chief compliance officer. "In order to meet our mission, it is
important we have both the brilliant minds we have at UCLA and collaboration
with industry."
Arvin said the university "thoroughly and
objectively investigated those allegations of noncompliance raised by Dr.
Pedowitz. We were able to determine the vast majority were
unsubstantiated."
She said two doctors fell short of university
expectations in their handling of outside income, but there was no violation of
law or university policy in either instance.
Arvin cited the case of Dr. Nick Shamie, the
orthopedic surgeon who testified at trial about receiving $250,000 from
Medtronic for consulting work. She said department policy at the time didn't require Shamie to
send that outside income through UCLA's faculty compensation plan.
At trial, Pedowitz said he was deeply troubled by
the large amount of money Shamie was paid. He testified that he was
particularly concerned that Shamie was trying to enroll patients in a research
study involving Medtronic at the time.
"I saw this as an obvious problem,"
Pedowitz testified.
In court, Shamie said he abided by university
policy and didn't pursue the study further because finding patients was too
difficult. He couldn't be reached for additional comment.
The other physician cited by Arvin for a
potential shortcoming was Dr. David McAllister, vice chairman of clinical
operations for the orthopedic surgery department.
He didn't
report payments from the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation,
a nonprofit tissue bank that does business with UCLA, because he didn't think
disclosure was required in that instance because it didn't involve a for-profit
entity, Arvin said.
McAllister also declined to comment, referring a
call to UCLA.
Shortly
before Pedowitz joined UCLA in 2009, the university was already facing
criticism from Congress
over the failure of a top spine surgeon to report nearly $460,000 in payments
he received from Medtronic and other medical companies while researching their
products' use in patients, government records show.
Dr. Jeffrey Wang, who left for USC Spine Center
last fall, stepped down as head of UCLA's spine program in 2009 after U.S. Sen.
Charles Grassley
(R-Iowa) publicized his lapse in disclosure as part of a larger investigation
into medical conflicts of interest.
Several patients are now suing Wang and UCLA in
state court for negligence, fraud and malpractice in connection with surgeries
involving Medtronic's controversial Infuse bone graft. UCLA said it doesn't comment on pending
litigation. Wang couldn't be reached for comment.
Shortly after raising his concerns, Pedowitz
said, he was pressured to step down as department chairman in 2010. Pedowitz
said he was further retaliated against by being denied patient referrals and
prevented from participating in grants and other activities.
Before UCLA, Pedowitz worked at UC San Diego and
as chairman of orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of South
Florida.
Mark
Quigley, an attorney representing Pedowitz, said the case could have been
avoided if the UC system enforced the policies it already has in place.
"What
good are all the policies if they protect the wrongdoers and fail to protect
the actual whistleblower?" Quigley said. "The university wanted to
cover it all up."
Twitter: @chadterhune
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