UI Health Found Liable In Physician Privileges Suit

The University of Iowa Health System's director of nuclear medicine has been found liable for revoking the clinical privileges of a physician he supervised without due process. The result is a large judgment that the UI Health will have to pay.

A jury found the director, radiologist Michael Graham, M.D., had violated the due process rights of Ravi Sood, M.D. when he revoked his medical privileges without a hearing. It awarded Sood $37,000 in economic damages, representing the pay he lost as a result of having his medical rights stripped. Last week, the trial judge awarded another $146,000 to cover Sood's legal fees and related expenses.

Sood had been hired in July 2008 to help Graham operate the UI Health's nuclear medicine clinic. After alleged complaints from residents that Sood's skills were inadequate, Graham demoted him to part-time status, then notified him his contract would not be renewed when it expired the following year.

Although that was within his authority to do, Graham also stripped Sood of his medical privileges, which he later claimed was a bureaucratic error. Although Sood's privileges were eventually reinstated, their suspension was a red flag when he attempted to find employment elsewhere. Sood eventually found a job working as a prison physician in another state.

Although Graham was found specifically liable, state law indemnified him because he was acting within the scope of employment. The Iowa Attorney General's Office represented Graham, a former president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, during the trial.