Sedated patient sues anaesthetist over operation banter

A patient in the US has sued an anaesthetist who viciously mocked him after he was put under anaesthetic for a medical procedure.

Before undergoing a colonoscopy, the Virginia man pressed record on his smartphone, to capture the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure.

However to his surprise, the audio recording also captured the vile banter that took place while he was knocked out.

In the recording, the doctors can be heard insulting the man and discussing how they will avoid him after the procedure, the Washington Post reports. They even instruct an assistant to lie to him and place a false diagnosis on his chart.

The patient first heard the concerning audio when he was on the way home from the procedure, which took place in April 2013. “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,” the anaesthetist can be heard saying.

Then when a medical assistant noted the man had a rash, the anaesthetist warned her not to touch it, as she might get syphilis on her arm. “It’s probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you’ll be all right,” he added.

When the assistant noted that the man reported getting queasy when watching a needle placed in his arm, the anaesthetist remarked on the recording, “Well, why are you looking then, retard?”

After hearing the audio, the man decided to sue the two doctors and their practices for defamation and medical malpractice.

Just last week, a Fairfax County jury ordered the anaesthetist Tiffany Ingham and her practice to pay the man, identified in court papers only as “DB, over $500,000.

The gastroenterologist who performed the colonoscopy, Soloman Shah, was dismissed from the case on the opening day of the trial.

The jury awarded the man $129,260 for defamation — $64,630 each for the comments about the man having syphilis and tuberculosis — $258,520 for medical malpractice, and $258,520 in punitive damages.

Neither Shah nor Ingham has commented on the case and the Post says their lawyers would not discuss whether they faced disciplinary action from the Virginia Board of Medicine.

The recording captured Ingham mocking the amount of anaesthetic needed to sedate the man, the lawsuit states.

Then the anaesthetist said, “I’m going to mark ‘haemorrhoids’ even though we don’t see them and probably won’t,” and did write a diagnosis of haemorrhoids on the man’s chart, which the lawsuit said was a falsification of medical records.