Phone recording of anesthesiologist mocking colonoscopy patient leads to $500k verdict

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A Virginia man whose doctors' discussion during his colonoscopy was recorded on his smartphone was shocked to discover that they had insulted him throughout his examination. The vicious words led to a lawsuit, and last week it resulted in a $500,000 verdict for medical malpractice and defamation against his anesthesiologist, Tiffany Ingham.

Ingham joked with an assistant about avoiding the patient after the procedure was done. "After five minutes of talking to you in pre-op, I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit," she told him after he went under anesthesia. She also said she would place a diagnosis of hemorrhoids on the patient's chart, even though he didn't have the condition. That false diagnosis was not contradicted by the gastroenterologist who was performing the colonoscopy, Soloman Shah.

A report about the lawsuit (including audio from the recording) published in today's Washington Post doesn't name the patient, who is identified only as "D.B." in court papers.

The verdict came after a three-day jury trial. Shah was dismissed from the case on the first day of the trial, so the verdict stands against Ingham and the medical practice she worked out of, called Aisthesis.

When an assistant told Ingham that D.B. said he got queasy watching a needle go into her arm, Ingham said: "Well, why are you looking then, retard?"

When the assistant pointed out that D.B. had a rash, Ingham told her if she "rubbed up against it" she might get "some syphilis on your arm or something." Then she said, "It's probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you'll be all right."

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