Doctors sue in VA center bias dispute
The three women allege that Bay Pines in St. Petersburg retaliated against them.
By JACOB H. FRIES, Times Staff Writer
Published September 1, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG - Supervisors at Bay Pines VA Medical Center tried to force out three female doctors after they complained about age, gender and religious discrimination, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week.
The supervisors, intent on discouraging discrimination claims, urged other employees to file complaints against the doctors, so they could suspend and ultimately fire them, the lawsuit alleges. The three doctors - Claudia Cote, Diane Gowski and Sally Zachariah - are all longtime employees at the hospital.
As part of the retaliatory campaign, the supervisors also denied the doctors leadership positions, changed their duties and gave them lower evaluations, the suit says. They also are accused of rifling through one of the doctor's files and personal diaries in search of damaging material.
"The information that has been reported to us is disturbing," Joe Magri, the attorney representing them, said on Friday.
The suit names VA Secretary R. James Nicholson as the defendant, but alleges three supervisors retaliated against the doctors. The supervisors were identified as George Van Buskirk, Lithium Lin and Sharachandra Patel.
Bay Pines and VA officials did not return phone messages seeking comment.
The women became targets because they had previously filed equal employment opportunity complaints alleging discrimination, the suit says.
Cote, a pulmonary and critical care doctor, has worked at the hospital since 1996. She filed a claim in 2004, saying she was passed over for chief of medicine without being interviewed because she is a woman.
Later, she applied to be chief of pulmonary medicine but wasn't interviewed "due to her gender and reprisal for her complaints," the suit says.
Gowski, certified in internal medicine, worked at the hospital from 1997 to 1999 and returned in 2002. She claimed in 2005 that she was reassigned because of her religious beliefs, including her antiabortion views.
Zachariah, a neurologist at the hospital since 1989, alleged age, gender and racial discrimination in 2003. The hospital had tried to put the neurology department under different leadership. The claim was later settled.
But supervisors searched her personal files and later suspended her because of alleged research improprieties, the suits says.
"A number of very good doctors and employees are afraid to come forward with information they have regarding discriminatory or retaliatory conduct," Magri writes in the lawsuit.
Staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Jacob H. Fries can be reached at jfries@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8872.