Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s orthopedics chief, placed on leave in 2022 during an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving unconscious patients and misogynistic behavior, is no longer working at the renowned Los Angeles County teaching hospital, the Southern California News Group has learned.
The county Department of Health Services confirmed in an email Thursday, March 21, that Dr. Louis Kwong’s employment has ended, but refused to disclose whether he resigned voluntarily or was fired, saying it was a personnel matter.
Harbor-UCLA’s chief medical officer, Griselda Gutierrez, met briefly on March 13 with about 20 Orthopedic Department surgeons, residents and secretaries to inform them of Kwong’s employment status, according to Dr. Jennifer Hsu, a surgeon who attended the meeting.
However, Gutierrez declined to provide additional information, said Hsu, who along with fellow orthopedic surgeon Dr. Haleh Badkoobehi and Dr. Madonna Fernandez-Frackelton, Harbor-UCLA’s former director of emergency medicine, are suing the county for ignoring their complaints about Kwong.
Surgeons pressed Gutierrez for a formal statement detailing the findings of the county’s investigation, Hsu said.
“Dr. Gutierrez then said that it was a broad investigation,” she said. “She said there were violations of the county policy of equity and that there were substantiated findings on several other policy-related matters.”
One surgeon at the meeting came to Kwong’s defense, asking what the Orthopedics Department chairman had done that violated policy because it never occurred to him that Kwong’s actions were punishable in “life or in a job,” according to multiple sources who asked not to be identified because they fear retaliation.
Carol Gillam, an attorney representing Hsu, Badkoobehi and Fernandez-Frackelton, described the surgeon’s comments as “ludicrous.”
“It’s a shame the county doesn’t want to be more transparent with…
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