A Virginia man was awarded $500,000 by a jury after his phone recorded an operating team mocking him and putting down a false diagnosis during surgery. The man, identified by the initials D.B., filed a lawsuit in Fairfax County Court naming anesthesiologist Dr. Tiffany Ingham and her practice after his phone recorded audio during his colonoscopy April 18, 2013. UPI reports:
The audio, which D.B. said was recorded when he captured audio of his post-surgery instructions and forgot to turn off the recording app, features Ingham and other members of the surgery team calling the patient “annoying, a “wuss,” a “retard” and joking about him having “syphilis.”“And really, 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,” Ingham can be heard saying in the recording. D.B.’s legal team said the recording also featured the doctor putting down a false diagnosis.“I’m going to mark hemorrhoids, even though we don’t see them and probably won’t,” Ingham says in the recording. “I’m just gonna take a shot in the dark.” The jury awarded D.B. $500,000for medical malpractice, punitive damages and defamation.
