Memorial settles with doctor who brought whistleblower lawsuit

Memorial Medical Center has agreed to reinstate the privileges of a kidney specialist who contested his dismissal in a whistleblower lawsuit.

The Modesto hospital agreed not to appeal a Stanislaus Superior Court decision in June that sided with Dr. Mark Fahlen, who lost his privileges to care for patients at Memorial almost five years ago. Memorial is closely affiliated with Sutter Health of Sacramento and the Sutter Gould Medical Foundation clinics, which hired Fahlen in 2005.

The parties worked out details of the settlement in October, and Sutter’s board approved the agreement in November.

“We have mutually agreed to settle the matter,” a hospital statement said Friday. “Dr. Mark Fahlen was reinstated to the Memorial Medical Center medical staff, and we are pleased this is now behind us.”

Fahlen said details of the settlement are confidential. “I am glad that it is resolved and we can all move on in a spirit of providing the best patient care possible,” the physician said.

Fahlen lost his position with Sutter Gould Medical Foundation in 2008 following disputes with Memorial nurses regarding patient care. According to his lawsuits, Memorial officials urged Sutter Gould to fire him because of disruptive conduct and then took steps to deny his hospital privileges.

Fahlen appealed a hospital executive committee decision to prohibit him from seeing patients at Memorial, and a six-member physicians panel concluded there was no cause to deny his privileges. Sutter disregarded the review panel and denied Fahlen’s privileges in January 2011.

One of Fahlen’s legal complaints was taken up by the California Supreme Court, which ruled in 2014 that physicians don’t have to exhaust other remedies before filing suit under the state’s whistleblower laws. The California Medical Association supported Fahlen’s case with a friend-of-the-court brief.

That ruling allowed Fahlen’s lawsuit to proceed in Stanislaus Superior Court. In June, Judge Timothy Salter overturned Memorial’s decision to deny his privileges and said hospital officials should have followed the physician panel’s decision.

Fahlen, who graduated from Albany Medical College in New York, has a private practice in Modesto. He has board certifications in nephrology and internal medicine.

This story was originally published December 6, 2015 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Memorial settles with doctor who brought whistleblower lawsuit."