Fresno heart surgeon files claim against state agency that he says falsely accused him

A high-profile Fresno cardiac surgeon who is accused of leaving an open-heart surgery before his patient’s chest was closed has filed a multimillion-dollar claim against the state agency that investigated the alleged incident at Community Regional Medical Center.

Dr. Pervaiz Chaudhry says the report by the California Department of Public Health falsely accused him of leaving the operating room during the surgery in April 2012 and falsely reported that he admitted the wrongdoing to a state interviewer.

Chaudhry says staff at the California Department of Public Health did an inadequate and sloppy investigation and published a “substantially inaccurate and damaging” report that has damaged his reputation, caused him economic harm and emotional distress. In the claim against the state, he is seeking $15 million-plus.

The report “destroyed completely my life, my family, my partners, my group,” Chaudhry said in an interview this past week.

His medical group, Valley Cardiac Surgery Medical Group, has filed a similar claim for $10 million-plus, said Brian Leighton, a Clovis lawyer who is representing Chaudhry and the group in the claims against the state.

Chaudhry said he provided the state agency with electronic swipe-card records that showed the times that he entered and left the operating room, which verified that he left after the patient’s chest was closed. He also called the state’s attention to handwritten notes taken during a state interview with him in 2012 that contradicted statements ascribed to him in the state report.

Up until the middle of this year, the doctor was led to believe a corrected report would be forthcoming, Leighton said. Chaudhry received a draft amended report, but there were concerns about it, he said. The draft removed references to Chaudhry having left the operating room while a patient’s chest was open but failed to specify that the allegations made in the first report had been proven to be untrue, Leighton said.

The proposed amended report also said Chaudhry left the operating room while the patient was unstable, which was false, Leighton said.

Said Chaudhry: “That is abandoning a patient, and I have never, ever abandoned a patient in my entire life.”

In June, the staff at the Department of Public Health refused to withdraw the original report and to file a corrected report, Leighton said. The department provided no explanation for the decision, he said, and Chaudhry then had no choice but to file a claim for damages.

The Department of Public Health would not comment on pending litigation.

Leighton said the department has 45 days to respond to the claim, which was filed on Nov. 25.

The state fined Community Regional Medical Center $75,000 for the alleged April 2, 2012 incident. The hospital did not appeal the administrative penalty, said Corey Egel, a spokesman for the Department of Public Health.

The state report has generated six civil lawsuits against Chaudhry, said James M. Goodman, a San Francisco lawyer representing the doctor in the civil cases.

Goodman said the “sloppiness that went into this work is astonishing” and that Chaudhry gave the state every opportunity to correct it. “If they corrected the report and made it right, it’s something he could pass around. It’s something he could go to the press with; it’s something he could use in the future.”

Chaudhry’s claim against the state does not exonerate him, said Steven Heimberg, the Los Angeles lawyer representing the family of Silvino Perez, the patient who the surgeon allegedly left in the operating room before his chest was closed.

Perez suffered massive blood loss after the surgery and went into cardiac arrest. He has been in a minimally conscious state since the surgery and remains in a Fresno nursing home, Heimberg said.

“The overwhelming evidence doesn’t support the claims he’s now making,” Heimberg said.

Goodman said the Department of Public Health’s failures in its investigation and the report it filed have unfairly led to lawsuits and to public criticism against Chaudhry that persists. The agency, he said, should be forced to be accountable.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Fresno heart surgeon files claim against state agency that he says falsely accused him."