HEAR IT: Medical staff mocked unconscious patient who unknowingly recorded them during colonoscopy
He was undergoing a colonoscopy, but the medical staff was the real pain in the butt.
A Virginia man won a $500,000 lawsuit against an anesthesiologist and her practice after he unknowingly recorded them mocking and intentionally misdiagnosing him while he was unconscious, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The man, a Vienna resident identified only as "D.B." in court records, went to Dr. Tiffany Ingham's Reston practice in April 2013, Courthouse News Service reported.
He started recording the procedure, wanting to capture the doctor's instructions for post-operative care. He forgot to stop recording once he went under.
Dr. Tiffany Ingham was heard mocking an unconscious patient and instructing her staff to misdiagnose him in a recording accidentally captured by the man, who successfully sued her and her practice.
Only on his way home did he hear how sick the doctor and her assistants really were.
"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 said almost as soon as he was unconscious, as heard in audio uploaded by the Post.
Ingham warned an assistant not to touch a rash the man had because she might get "some syphilis on your arm." She also joked that the rash was "penis ebola" and "probably tuberculous in the penis."
One assistant called the patient a "retard." The staff members wondered if the man was gay, and Ingham said she knew "gay men that have more manliness" than the patient.
And she told her staff to write that he had hemorrhoids, which he did not. The staffers are heard mocking patients at large for their gullibility and over-reliance on medical advice from the Internet.
Ingham, 42, no longer works at that practice. She relocated to a practice in Tavares, Fla., but it's unclear where she is working now, according to the Post.
The man unknowingly recorded the vile remarks by a doctor and her assistants during a colonoscopy at Dr. Tiffany Ingham's practice in Reston, Va.
The man won the suit on claims of medical malpractice, punitive damages and defamation — $50,000 for the tuberculosis comment and another $50,000 for the syphilis one.
"I've never heard of a case like this," defamation lawyer Lee Berlik told the Post, noting that doctors' comments are usually privileged, but in this case the recording caught the doctor and her staff talking about things far different from the work at hand.
Follow @jaysunsilver
jsilverstein@nydailynews.com
He was undergoing a colonoscopy, but the medical staff was the real pain in the butt.
A Virginia man won a $500,000 lawsuit against an anesthesiologist and her practice after he unknowingly recorded them mocking and intentionally misdiagnosing him while he was unconscious, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The man, a Vienna resident identified only as "D.B." in court records, went to Dr. Tiffany Ingham's Reston practice in April 2013, Courthouse News Service reported.
He started recording the procedure, wanting to capture the doctor's instructions for post-operative care. He forgot to stop recording once he went under.
Only on his way home did he hear how sick the doctor and her assistants really were.
"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 said almost as soon as he was unconscious, as heard in audio uploaded by the Post.
Ingham warned an assistant not to touch a rash the man had because she might get "some syphilis on your arm." She also joked that the rash was "penis ebola" and "probably tuberculous in the penis."
One assistant called the patient a "retard." The staff members wondered if the man was gay, and Ingham said she knew "gay men that have more manliness" than the patient.
And she told her staff to write that he had hemorrhoids, which he did not. The staffers are heard mocking patients at large for their gullibility and over-reliance on medical advice from the Internet.
Ingham, 42, no longer works at that practice. She relocated to a practice in Tavares, Fla., but it's unclear where she is working now, according to the Post.
The man unknowingly recorded the vile remarks by a doctor and her assistants during a colonoscopy at Dr. Tiffany Ingham's practice in Reston, Va.
The man won the suit on claims of medical malpractice, punitive damages and defamation — $50,000 for the tuberculosis comment and another $50,000 for the syphilis one.
"I've never heard of a case like this," defamation lawyer Lee Berlik told the Post, noting that doctors' comments are usually privileged, but in this case the recording caught the doctor and her staff talking about things far different from the work at hand.
Follow @jaysunsilver
jsilverstein@nydailynews.com