A former employee of San Juan Regional Medical Center in New Mexico is suing the hospital, claiming she was fired for speaking out against the credentialing of unqualified radiologists.
Rebecca Hahn filed the lawsuit Sept. 16 in Aztec District Court and seeks unspecified damages on claims that include retaliation, breach of implied contract, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
She claims in the lawsuit that her direct supervisor, John Buffington, then director of staff medical services, told her not to voice concerns in September 2006 over the credentialing of resident students as locum tenens radiologists.
Hahn claims in the lawsuit that the credentialing violated the hospital’s by-laws, as well as its credentialing and privileging standards.
She also claims that an attorney for the hospital told her one of the resident student radiologists whose credentialing she challenged later misread an appendix scan, causing a woman’s miscarriage.
Hahn claims she met with hospital Chief Executive Officer Rick Wallace to discuss her concerns but was subsequently fired.
The hospital issued a statement denying the claims. “At all times, San Juan Regional Medical Center has used medically qualified providers to read radiology scans, and it does not know of any situation where a scan was misread because the provider was not medical qualified,” the statement said.
