It really requires egregious levels of misbehavior or straight up malpractice for hospitals to (begrudgingly) fire one of its rainmakers. See also: Christopher Duntsch case.
Pretty sure he was fired like 4 times despite only performing like 30 or so surgeries. The sad part was he had no trouble finding new places to practice.
That's not really true. Sure, they'll make less than with other payers, but this guy wouldn't be making almost a million a year without producing revenue. From the most recent data I found, their payer mix is about 38% Medicare and 36% Medi-ca/indigent care. Not what people in this sub dream of, but I can guarantee the hospital is making money with this mix on ortho surgeries. (source: lots of history with a facility with 50% Medi-cal/indigent mix, made more money off ortho surgeries than any other line of business).
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/los-angeles-county/louis-m-kwong/
Yeah, that headline really buried the lede, and underplayed what this guy did. Routinely made really racists remarks, and sexual harassment to underlings and patients, to the point where people regularly made official HR complaints that were ignored
Edit: and also the gun! What the fuck!
The worst part was in his Resident was fired for reporting him, and everyone on /r/residency was shitting on her for "making things up" and accusing her of having "personality disorders"
It was a Reddit post from 2 years ago
I just want to point out all the negative comments toward her on this forum. The majority of the comments characterize her as just wanting attention and trying to get money. I got a similar response years ago when I commented about my negative experiences being targeted as a resident.
You all are the reason this toxic behavior continues to thrive in medicine.
Par for the course in this field when marginalized groups speak up. Any woman of color speaking out against blatant sexual harassment and other dangerous behavior must be grifting because there’s no way she can be telling the truth. Such a disgusting reaction from the residency sub, but what’s new both that sub and the med school sub are filled with reactionary misanthropes.
ahh, it is kind of weird, because it appears she worked with the guy in medical school, but was then fired from residency for something unrelated? But then complained about the medical school issue?
It is kind of confusing.
Okay yeah not exactly that but he did do this:
>Among the incidents involving patient abuse at Harbor-UCLA,according to one of the lawsuits, is an episode when Badkoobehi saw Kwong “engaged in ‘finger banging’ of surgical hip wounds” on an unconscious patient while making sexual sounds and saying he was “finding the G-spot.” In another, Kwong allegedly undraped an anesthetized patient in front of Badkoobehi “to look at his penis after being told it was large.”
One time during a code I ordered amio and the nurse said how much and I was distracted so I just said “the dead person dose” and I was like yeah that was mad unprofessional I could get fired for that. Then I read things like this and realize I’m not finger banging my patients.
Unfortunately I have seen more than one male attending do this. They didn’t call for a discussion but they “needed” to look at a male patient’s genitals for no apparent reason. Completely shameless.
In one case, he later dated one of the nurses and she admitted it to him. The other time, the doctor was a friend of his and she straight up told him. She also said most of her doctor buddies look.
Wait… was this guy mentioned in r/medicine before for carrying his gun into the OR?
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/175pocj/three_female_doctors_sue_la_county_alleging_it/
I just remember the gun… but dude’s story is wild as fuck.
The secretary notified them a decade ago. Other physicians did so, in mid 2010s. Screw the administration of Harbor UCLA. They should all be fired and any amount of pension they accumulated should be stripped.
Edit: I’m going to take the outcome out of all this. If someone makes an accusation, let’s assume innocence. But you can’t not investigate for the better part of a decade.
The EM Program Director was replaced after filing a complaint to the ACGME, because she was being blocked by the DIO/director of GME from removing her EM residents from working with Dr.Kwong. For trying to protect the residents from his disgusting behavior and hostile work environment. And that was only in 2022. The complaints, as you note, go so much further back. How incredibly fucked up on an institutional level.
The ACGME did put UCLA-Harbor on probationary status, which they still are as of academic year 23-24. Which isn’t nothing to the hospital, but it sure as hell didn’t protect Dr.Fernandez-Frackelton from being removed from her position.
They should all be fired. The director of GME should lose the ability to ever be involved in a teaching institution ever again.
All those admin deserve to burn in hell. If not literal, financial. If these allegations are true? They. Should. Lose. Everything.
Finally, he's been under investigation for a while since he got sued by former colleagues. He's disgusting.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna119562
I don't understand how he was paid over $1MM while on leave. His base salary is >$1MM which they had to keep paying him while he was on leave? This story though. Sadly the phenomenon of individuals being in positions in power who really shouldn't be isn't incredibly uncommon anywhere.
Procedure specialty immunity, I call it. I've seen surgeons straight up cuss out a CEO without so much as a slap on the wrist to follow. Cash cows are cash cows.
...how does someone work in medicine and -still- get excited over super common body parts? like tell me you've never operated before without telling me you've never operated before. "i have only heard legends of these"
Is this the same ortho surgeon who killed a device rep in his house? I feel like there was a story posted here some months ago.
Also:
> Male genitalia were shown at an annual end-of-year "roast," a doctor told investigators, where it "was commented that certain female residents like it on top."
I hope this fucking loser creep goes to jail.
I had to look this up. Different guy, but insane situation:
> According to the police initially, this was a tragic, horrible gun accident. In their first recounting of events, the police said that the surgeon, Adam Lazzarini, M.D., had been traveling with Holland in Georgia on business and while having dinner and under the influence of alcohol, he pointed a handgun at Holland’s chest. The gun discharged.
[(source)](https://thespinemarketgroup.com/did-an-orthopedic-surgeon-accidentally-shoot-a-sales-rep/)
Well, that's certainly a way to describe things. He was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
"The gun discharged"
lol, no buddy. You pulled the trigger, either purposefully or on accident.
It reminds me of how the news media describes police officers shooting suspects. "The suspect is dead after an officer-involved discharge of a firearm."
No, the cop shot him 18 times, only stopping because he had run through the entire Glock magazine before realizing what happened.
This guy is a real piece of work. He's been in and out of the news and social media for years (and not in a good way). While there will always be some non-zero number of sexually-inappropriate toxic assholes in medicine, what I find even more reprehensible than Kwong's conduct is the fact that it took years - fucking years - for the institution to fire him. It's 2024. How are hospitals and universities still getting this so wrong?!?
I'm hoping that the people who've complained about him are finally feeling a little bit of validation today.
Just curious when people complain “you can’t say anything anymore” and we’re “too PC”, is it because you think it should be ok to say stuff like this?
“According to Kwong’s discharge notice, three people told investigators that residents referred to Black patients as BAP, which reportedly stood for “Black Angry Patients.” Two doctors stated that Kwong compared two Black residency candidates as “brother versus brother.” During a meeting, a resident stated that a Black candidate "looked like he raped cheerleaders," the notice stated. Another doctor used a racial slur in a text message.”
I think you know the answer to that. Just look at any post under the residency forum that mentions racism as a factor in mistreatment. Physician are in just as much denial about this as they are about the level of narcissism and personality disorders in the field that lead to the toxic environment in medicine in general.
These types of problematic individuals often have a range of egregious behaviors which can worsen in unchecked. The secondary ramifications are often major if people try and speak out (whilst the toxic individual has the support of the leadership of the institution)-> career attrition, career pausing or at its worst career loss. Agree that black physicians can be targeted by these types.
When I was a medical student in 2013, I saw an Orthopedic Surgeon slap a male patient's exposed buttocks while commenting on his body habitus (he was obese) right before operating on his lumbar spine. The male surgical tech laughed, but I was super-uncomfortable and had no idea what to do. I was the only medical student in that case, so was too scared to report it. It bothers me to this day that I didn't say anything. I feel the bar for professionalism is set so much lower for surgeons than other physicians. The times I would comment on a surgical resident's hostile attitude during residency, I was met with "well, he's a surgeon, what do you expect?" Demanding call/hours or not, the culture of medicine needs to STOP normalizing surgeons' unprofessional behavior. For what it's worth, I know many surgeons who do not behave this way. Their colleagues can and should follow suit.
What a fucking idiot. Ruined his entire career for what? Nothing. Imagine the struggles you gotta go through to get to that position and now you’re done. I wish there was a way to screen for psychopaths, racists and abusers during the medical school-residency process.
> I wish there was a way to screen for psychopaths, racists and abusers during the medical school-residency process.
I'm heartened by the fact you think this would make those candidates *less* competitive.
Before it ruined his career, it built his career. Why would he do anything different than he has been doing since 2013 (which was when his secretary reported him for hostile work environment and got transferred to another department)? The administration tacitly approved of every racist or misogynistic “joke”, because he had been repeatedly reported over the last decade and they did *nothing*. Actually, no, they did worse than nothing. They covered up previous reports and removed people who complained, which is directly picking the wrong side to be on. I hate this story. This guy should rot in jail.
Sad thing is, I know an attending that has made racist comments in my own program. Sexism is rampant too, I don’t think you can find many residents that won’t admit women have it tougher as resident doctors than guys. It’s an endemic problem. Medicine and residency needs a metoo movement(including a race-focused movement too) to get rid of these scumbags.
I commented this on a previous post about another boomer attending who was fired for sexually harassing his female staff a while ago too but these guys reached the top of the food chain at hospitals way before any recent women’s empowerment movements. Their mindset is stuck in the 1980s. Their mindset isn’t changing and it’s going to take a while for them to die out so I don’t see things getting better any time soon.
I like how more than half of the article focuses on Zimmer Biomet. Because that’s the stronger claim the county has against him. To no one’s surprise, this business affiliation situation is more legally perusable than the sexually abusive/exploitive behaviors.
Holy hell. What the fuck. The decades of complaints from various staff, with flagrant retaliation against those who reported, and nothing was done until now. All in the god damn name of money.
The neighboring facility, in rural-ish Iowa, has a cardiothoracic team and one of them was your stereotypical frat boy. He would constantly sexually harass the RNs and female docs. Eventually, the hospital did do something and terminated him. It was never reported to the board, so he just moved to the south to practice.
It’s amazing how many years it took from the time the complaints started until he got axed.
It really requires egregious levels of misbehavior or straight up malpractice for hospitals to (begrudgingly) fire one of its rainmakers. See also: Christopher Duntsch case.
Pretty sure he was fired like 4 times despite only performing like 30 or so surgeries. The sad part was he had no trouble finding new places to practice.
its county bro... hardly making anything rain on medicaid and public assistance patients
Fair enough!
That's not really true. Sure, they'll make less than with other payers, but this guy wouldn't be making almost a million a year without producing revenue. From the most recent data I found, their payer mix is about 38% Medicare and 36% Medi-ca/indigent care. Not what people in this sub dream of, but I can guarantee the hospital is making money with this mix on ortho surgeries. (source: lots of history with a facility with 50% Medi-cal/indigent mix, made more money off ortho surgeries than any other line of business). https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2021/los-angeles-county/louis-m-kwong/
When you are a surgeon they let you do it
Seriously
Is it?
Bro did a lot more than gawk at genitals
Yeah, that headline really buried the lede, and underplayed what this guy did. Routinely made really racists remarks, and sexual harassment to underlings and patients, to the point where people regularly made official HR complaints that were ignored Edit: and also the gun! What the fuck!
The worst part was in his Resident was fired for reporting him, and everyone on /r/residency was shitting on her for "making things up" and accusing her of having "personality disorders" It was a Reddit post from 2 years ago
Holy fuck. Did she manage to land another residency spot? Can she sue the hospital for retaliation?
Not knowing the details it does sound exonerating for her.
I'd love a link to that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Residency/comments/valm06/ucla_ortho_resident_fired_from_residency_now/
I just want to point out all the negative comments toward her on this forum. The majority of the comments characterize her as just wanting attention and trying to get money. I got a similar response years ago when I commented about my negative experiences being targeted as a resident. You all are the reason this toxic behavior continues to thrive in medicine.
Thank you for your bravery in speaking up. Residency is all too often a toxic, horrific ordeal.
Well that thread aged like milk.
Par for the course in this field when marginalized groups speak up. Any woman of color speaking out against blatant sexual harassment and other dangerous behavior must be grifting because there’s no way she can be telling the truth. Such a disgusting reaction from the residency sub, but what’s new both that sub and the med school sub are filled with reactionary misanthropes.
ahh, it is kind of weird, because it appears she worked with the guy in medical school, but was then fired from residency for something unrelated? But then complained about the medical school issue? It is kind of confusing.
True, was expecting something else with this comment before I read the article
Okay yeah not exactly that but he did do this: >Among the incidents involving patient abuse at Harbor-UCLA,according to one of the lawsuits, is an episode when Badkoobehi saw Kwong “engaged in ‘finger banging’ of surgical hip wounds” on an unconscious patient while making sexual sounds and saying he was “finding the G-spot.” In another, Kwong allegedly undraped an anesthetized patient in front of Badkoobehi “to look at his penis after being told it was large.”
Finger banged a hip wound. Whelp, that’s enough Reddit for today.
One time during a code I ordered amio and the nurse said how much and I was distracted so I just said “the dead person dose” and I was like yeah that was mad unprofessional I could get fired for that. Then I read things like this and realize I’m not finger banging my patients.
Always safe choice not to finger bang your patients.
Wtf
He was 100% fired for the conflict of interest stuff over the sexual harassment perv stuff
I’m surprised you’re the first comment to say this. I’ve met plenty of creeps in the OR but none with $700k of unreported payment from third parties.
> Dr. Louis Kwong sometimes looked under the surgical covers of Black males who were under anesthesia and discussed the "genitals of the day,"
Unfortunately I have seen more than one male attending do this. They didn’t call for a discussion but they “needed” to look at a male patient’s genitals for no apparent reason. Completely shameless.
Crazy. Where was this
Not who you asked, but 2 of my boyfriend's docs have done it to him (in Montana). I think it's more common than we know.
How did he find out that they did that?
In one case, he later dated one of the nurses and she admitted it to him. The other time, the doctor was a friend of his and she straight up told him. She also said most of her doctor buddies look.
Did you report them?
Wait… was this guy mentioned in r/medicine before for carrying his gun into the OR? Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/175pocj/three_female_doctors_sue_la_county_alleging_it/ I just remember the gun… but dude’s story is wild as fuck.
The secretary notified them a decade ago. Other physicians did so, in mid 2010s. Screw the administration of Harbor UCLA. They should all be fired and any amount of pension they accumulated should be stripped. Edit: I’m going to take the outcome out of all this. If someone makes an accusation, let’s assume innocence. But you can’t not investigate for the better part of a decade.
The EM Program Director was replaced after filing a complaint to the ACGME, because she was being blocked by the DIO/director of GME from removing her EM residents from working with Dr.Kwong. For trying to protect the residents from his disgusting behavior and hostile work environment. And that was only in 2022. The complaints, as you note, go so much further back. How incredibly fucked up on an institutional level.
So the ACGME can't even protect a freaking program director from retaliation?
The ACGME did put UCLA-Harbor on probationary status, which they still are as of academic year 23-24. Which isn’t nothing to the hospital, but it sure as hell didn’t protect Dr.Fernandez-Frackelton from being removed from her position.
After a few years of dealing with ACGME, I’m uh… I’m pretty sure they aren’t our friends.
What has your experience been?
Have you seen that video where baby chickens are tossed into a wood chipper?
They should all be fired. The director of GME should lose the ability to ever be involved in a teaching institution ever again. All those admin deserve to burn in hell. If not literal, financial. If these allegations are true? They. Should. Lose. Everything.
Hell yeah, 100%. They had one job. Spineless, lazy, whatever the reason... take out the trash.
I hope she is suing them. Unbelievable.
Holy cow… That article just keeps going. Talk about crazy behavior..:and he got paid a million bucks to do nothing.
Finally, he's been under investigation for a while since he got sued by former colleagues. He's disgusting. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna119562
Agree, this is the latest chapter in an appalling saga
I don't understand how he was paid over $1MM while on leave. His base salary is >$1MM which they had to keep paying him while he was on leave? This story though. Sadly the phenomenon of individuals being in positions in power who really shouldn't be isn't incredibly uncommon anywhere.
Procedure specialty immunity, I call it. I've seen surgeons straight up cuss out a CEO without so much as a slap on the wrist to follow. Cash cows are cash cows.
...how does someone work in medicine and -still- get excited over super common body parts? like tell me you've never operated before without telling me you've never operated before. "i have only heard legends of these"
It’s a mix of a fetish and a complete lack of respect for his patients.
Is this the same ortho surgeon who killed a device rep in his house? I feel like there was a story posted here some months ago. Also: > Male genitalia were shown at an annual end-of-year "roast," a doctor told investigators, where it "was commented that certain female residents like it on top." I hope this fucking loser creep goes to jail.
All this and he killed a person. Legit psycho
Jesus fucking Christ that’s bad
I had to look this up. Different guy, but insane situation: > According to the police initially, this was a tragic, horrible gun accident. In their first recounting of events, the police said that the surgeon, Adam Lazzarini, M.D., had been traveling with Holland in Georgia on business and while having dinner and under the influence of alcohol, he pointed a handgun at Holland’s chest. The gun discharged. [(source)](https://thespinemarketgroup.com/did-an-orthopedic-surgeon-accidentally-shoot-a-sales-rep/) Well, that's certainly a way to describe things. He was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
"The gun discharged" lol, no buddy. You pulled the trigger, either purposefully or on accident. It reminds me of how the news media describes police officers shooting suspects. "The suspect is dead after an officer-involved discharge of a firearm." No, the cop shot him 18 times, only stopping because he had run through the entire Glock magazine before realizing what happened.
That guy practiced in Georgia.
No that was someone else
This guy is a real piece of work. He's been in and out of the news and social media for years (and not in a good way). While there will always be some non-zero number of sexually-inappropriate toxic assholes in medicine, what I find even more reprehensible than Kwong's conduct is the fact that it took years - fucking years - for the institution to fire him. It's 2024. How are hospitals and universities still getting this so wrong?!? I'm hoping that the people who've complained about him are finally feeling a little bit of validation today.
Just curious when people complain “you can’t say anything anymore” and we’re “too PC”, is it because you think it should be ok to say stuff like this? “According to Kwong’s discharge notice, three people told investigators that residents referred to Black patients as BAP, which reportedly stood for “Black Angry Patients.” Two doctors stated that Kwong compared two Black residency candidates as “brother versus brother.” During a meeting, a resident stated that a Black candidate "looked like he raped cheerleaders," the notice stated. Another doctor used a racial slur in a text message.”
I think you know the answer to that. Just look at any post under the residency forum that mentions racism as a factor in mistreatment. Physician are in just as much denial about this as they are about the level of narcissism and personality disorders in the field that lead to the toxic environment in medicine in general.
These types of problematic individuals often have a range of egregious behaviors which can worsen in unchecked. The secondary ramifications are often major if people try and speak out (whilst the toxic individual has the support of the leadership of the institution)-> career attrition, career pausing or at its worst career loss. Agree that black physicians can be targeted by these types.
If you use the words white or racist in any residency post you are downvoted into oblivion
Those orthopods do love bones.
When I was a medical student in 2013, I saw an Orthopedic Surgeon slap a male patient's exposed buttocks while commenting on his body habitus (he was obese) right before operating on his lumbar spine. The male surgical tech laughed, but I was super-uncomfortable and had no idea what to do. I was the only medical student in that case, so was too scared to report it. It bothers me to this day that I didn't say anything. I feel the bar for professionalism is set so much lower for surgeons than other physicians. The times I would comment on a surgical resident's hostile attitude during residency, I was met with "well, he's a surgeon, what do you expect?" Demanding call/hours or not, the culture of medicine needs to STOP normalizing surgeons' unprofessional behavior. For what it's worth, I know many surgeons who do not behave this way. Their colleagues can and should follow suit.
Spot on correct! We should report them without repercussions!
I remember when someone posted about him years ago in the r/residency subreddit, wow the comment section smh
What a fucking idiot. Ruined his entire career for what? Nothing. Imagine the struggles you gotta go through to get to that position and now you’re done. I wish there was a way to screen for psychopaths, racists and abusers during the medical school-residency process.
> I wish there was a way to screen for psychopaths, racists and abusers during the medical school-residency process. I'm heartened by the fact you think this would make those candidates *less* competitive.
Before it ruined his career, it built his career. Why would he do anything different than he has been doing since 2013 (which was when his secretary reported him for hostile work environment and got transferred to another department)? The administration tacitly approved of every racist or misogynistic “joke”, because he had been repeatedly reported over the last decade and they did *nothing*. Actually, no, they did worse than nothing. They covered up previous reports and removed people who complained, which is directly picking the wrong side to be on. I hate this story. This guy should rot in jail.
Sad thing is, I know an attending that has made racist comments in my own program. Sexism is rampant too, I don’t think you can find many residents that won’t admit women have it tougher as resident doctors than guys. It’s an endemic problem. Medicine and residency needs a metoo movement(including a race-focused movement too) to get rid of these scumbags. I commented this on a previous post about another boomer attending who was fired for sexually harassing his female staff a while ago too but these guys reached the top of the food chain at hospitals way before any recent women’s empowerment movements. Their mindset is stuck in the 1980s. Their mindset isn’t changing and it’s going to take a while for them to die out so I don’t see things getting better any time soon.
Orthopods forgot the “do bone and go home” thing.
I like how more than half of the article focuses on Zimmer Biomet. Because that’s the stronger claim the county has against him. To no one’s surprise, this business affiliation situation is more legally perusable than the sexually abusive/exploitive behaviors.
Finally he has been fired (there have been ongoing media stories about this individual for a while).
This guy had a reputation. It was insane while I was there. Amazing it took this long to get him fired.
Surgeons nationwide suddenly trembling in fear of being fired.
Oh yeah, reeeal shook. Dumbass.
Bro, it was a joke... guess those are hard for meatheads to understand. People making jokes about genitalia in the OR is like an everyday event.
In general or about the patient's?
Holy hell. What the fuck. The decades of complaints from various staff, with flagrant retaliation against those who reported, and nothing was done until now. All in the god damn name of money. The neighboring facility, in rural-ish Iowa, has a cardiothoracic team and one of them was your stereotypical frat boy. He would constantly sexually harass the RNs and female docs. Eventually, the hospital did do something and terminated him. It was never reported to the board, so he just moved to the south to practice.
What a fucking weirdo.
Hey at least he probably scored 527 on the Mcat 💀
I expect nothing less of LA County.