Hospital faces fallout after secret contact with former employee doctors

He did not name the three doctors who assisted – two residents and a vascular surgeon. All three had already left. 

That did not stop Virginia Mason from reaching out. 

The hospital arranged separate counsel for the doctors. Its defense team, risk managers, and a third-party claims administrator all stayed in contact with them. A privilege log later listed more than 400 instances of communication. 

Virginia Mason told the patient’s lawyer the former doctors’ knowledge was “more readily available to plaintiff’s counsel than defense counsel” because it could not contact them. The court called that, at minimum, misleading – the hospital’s own risk manager had already spent an hour on the phone with one of the doctors. 

Then there was the road trip. The hospital’s chief medical officer – who sat on its quality improvement committee – traveled across the state to reassure one of the former doctors. Defense counsel coordinated the visit and provided talking points.