The Medigate Case

Allegheny General Hospital Termination Hearings

West Penn Allegheny General Hospital held a Kangaroo-court Medical Staff Hearing to determine if they would support an Ad Hoc committee's decision to terminate Evelyn S. Berwick M.D. The hearing was conducted on November 17 and 18, 2003, and again on November 9, 2003.

Dr, Berwick and her General Business manager, Robert P. Hussey attended without legal representation. During the hearing they never mentioned the tragic P.H.P. referral due to the already serious nature of the accusations they were facing - they didn't want to present any possible negativity into the hearing.

We offer the following in her defense.

The patient care violation that triggered the Staff investigation occurred or March 18, 2002 - the day she was admitted to UPMC Montifiore Hospital via ambulance. Dr. Berwick's office did contact AGH by phone and inform the AGH contact about the hospital admission and of AGH's need to cover her patients. However, her patients were not covered by AGH and they later claimed in her termination hearing that they had no record of the call being made although the employee who made the call testified to it under oath.
This incident resulted in two of Level III patient care violations claimed against her in the AGH hearings. The third occurred a few months later, during the time when Dr. Berwick was faced with the erroneous emotional stress related to the PHP referral and maintaining a full patient load of 50 to 90 patients a day.
The trumped up charges and the medical records used against her in the three violations cited were with patients that continue to see and love Dr. Berwick.

Transcripts:

Transcripts of the Allegheny General Medical Staff Hearings are currently being annotated to provide commentary about the inconsistencies, fabrications and violation of protocol which were committed. Transcripts are available upon request.

Allegheny General Medical Staff Hearing November 17, 2003
Allegheny General Medical Staff Hearing November 18, 2003
Allegheny General Medical Staff Hearing December 9, 2003