Court: Mass. Hospital Did Not Defame Surgeon, Violate Rights

In a contentious 5-year case that pitted a Massachusetts orthopedic surgeon against a hospital's management and raised a question of retaliation for the surgeon's disloyalty, the hospital ultimately prevailed.

William Vranos, MD, alleged that the hospital's suspension of his staff privileges at the Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass., in 2004 constituted a breach of contract, violation of rights and interference with his medical career. Additionally, he argued, remarks made before and during the suspension process by the hospital's director of surgical and material services, Kenneth Gaspard, RN, and its president, Michael D. Skinner, RN, were defamatory in nature.

In the 5 years since Dr. Vranos filed his lawsuit, a trial court has dismissed the counts against the hospital, Mr. Gaspard and Mr. Skinner. While Dr. Vranos appealed this dismissal, the higher court this week rejected his arguments.

Dr. Vranos was a member of the Franklin Medical Center staff from July 1996 to November 2004 and chief of the hospital's department of surgery from January 2002. According to court records, Mr. Skinner had often sought to convince Dr. Vranos to leave a private orthopedic practice and join the hospital full-time, but Dr. Vranos declined and, in August 2004, announced that he'd be joining the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital in Brattleboro, Vt.

Court records also note that in October 2004, Dr. Vranos was one of 49 surgery department members who signed a letter expressing doubts about the fitness of Mr. Gaspard and his assistant, Kim Cotter, to manage the department. Later that month, at a surgical services support committee attended by Dr. Vranos and Mr. Gaspard, the two argued over an issue of hospital policy.

A day after the meeting, Mr. Skinner suspended Dr. Vranos' staff membership and privileges. A peer review committee later recommended that Dr. Vranos' suspension be lifted on the conditions that he resign as chief of surgery, apologize to Mr. Gaspard and seek anger management counseling.

In his lawsuit, Dr. Vranos alleged that this suspension was retaliation for his decision to join the Vermont hospital and for challenging Mr. Gaspard's leadership. He accused Mr. Gaspard of falsely claiming that he'd physically threatened and verbally abused him during the meeting. He noted that Mr. Skinner never asked the meeting's other attendees for their recollections of the argument. And he claimed that his reputation was unfairly tarnished by Mr. Skinner who, he said, told physicians asking about the suspension, "You would understand if you knew what I know, but I cannot tell you."

While Dr. Vranos claimed the suspension was a breach of contract, the court pointed out that he didn't take advantage of the recourse offered by the hospital's bylaws. The court rejected his arguments that the conditions by which he might regain his privileges violated his rights and interfered with his career, stating that there was no statutory basis for his position as surgery chief, that apologies and anger management didn't affect his ability to work and that he hadn't sufficiently shown damage to his relationships with patients, peers or future employers.

Dr. Vranos did not appeal the dismissed defamation count against Mr. Gaspard. His re-argument against Mr. Skinner's allegedly defamatory comments, however, was swept aside. "If there was injury to Vranos's reputation," the court wrote, "the injury inevitably flowed from the physicians' awareness of the summary suspension and the limited circumstances under which such a suspension could issue. In that context, Skinner's statement to the doctors added nothing to whatever defamatory sting flowed from the suspension itself."

Since the lawsuit's filing, Mr. Skinner has retired from Franklin Medical Center. A representative for the hospital did not return a call seeking comment. Neither Dr. Vranos nor his attorney immediately replied to requests for information.

David Bernard

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