Kidney specialist scores another victory in legal battle with Sutter, Memorial

A Stanislaus Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of a Modesto doctor who claimed his privileges at Memorial Medical Center were terminated after he complained about nursing practices.

Judge Timothy Salter overturned a hospital decision that has barred Dr. Mark Fahlen from treating patients at Memorial for the past four years. Salter said hospital officials should have followed a review panel’s opinion that Fahlen should keep his privileges. The decision to terminate Fahlen also violated the bylaws of the Sutter Health system, the ruling said.

Memorial is part of Sutter’s nonprofit health system.

Fahlen’s legal battles with Memorial and Sutter led to a state Supreme Court decision last year that strengthened whistleblower protections for physicians.

Attorney Stephen Schear, who represents Fahlen, said Salter’s ruling June 23 “affirms the rights of doctors who risk their careers by speaking out on behalf of patient safety. In a hospital environment dominated by corporate interests, the ruling protects whistleblower physicians from the abusive practices of corporate health care giants like Sutter.”

Memorial and Sutter are expected to appeal. “We are disappointed with the decision and are evaluating our options,” Sutter said.

Fahlen, a kidney specialist, says his struggles with what he calls “corporate medicine” resulted in the loss of his job with Gould Medical Group in 2008. According to his lawsuits, Fahlen’s complaints about nursing practices at Memorial got him in trouble with Sutter’s hospital administrators, who retaliated by urging Gould to fire him and initiating efforts to deny his hospital privileges.

Fahlen maintained that nurses endangered the lives of patients by refusing to carry out his orders. He filed numerous complaints with hospital administrators, while nurses charged that Fahlen was confrontational with staff.

After launching his own practice in Modesto, Fahlen struggled for three years to keep his privileges at Memorial. He appealed an executive committee recommendation to deny his privileges and received a favorable decision from a six-member physicians panel, which conducted evidentiary hearings.

The appeal process cost him more than $200,000 in legal fees, his attorney said.

Sutter finally decided in January 2011 to bar him from seeing patients at Memorial. The physician has amassed additional costs in challenging that decision in the courts.

Schear said Fahlen is seeking damages from Sutter in a separate lawsuit scheduled for trial in September. As part of that case, Fahlen is asking to have his hospital privileges reinstated.

Fahlen serves as chairman of the medical department at Doctors Medical Center of Modesto and is the medical director of a local dialysis center.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Kidney specialist scores another victory in legal battle with Sutter, Memorial."