Allegations of mistreatment and incompetence didn't stop obstetrician from practicing
LOS ANGELES - For the birth of their first child, social worker Diane Vidalakis and her husband chose one of Pasadena's most prominent obstetricians, Dr. Patrick Sutton, vice chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Huntington Memorial Hospital.
Labor initially progressed smoothly, with the couple listening to music and watching "Dancing with the Stars" in the hospital maternity ward.
Sutton arrived for the delivery in what the Vidalakises would later testify was a frenzied state. He shouted that he had to do an emergency cesarean section and then backtracked, picked up a pair of scissors and made three progressively deeper incisions into the base of Vidalakis' vagina, according to interviews, court records and a medical board complaint.
A minute later, she delivered a healthy daughter. Her own body, however, was grievously wounded. Vidalakis would never regain control of her bowels, and specialists who examined her would express shock that such extensive injuries resulted from a delivery at an American hospital by a licensed physician.
"I never challenged or questioned his authority," Vidalakis said in an interview. Without admitting wrongdoing, Sutton settled a 2011 lawsuit she and her husband filed for $750,000.
What Vidalakis and many other women who sought care from Sutton did not know was that he had a long history of patient complaints about his conduct before, during and after labor.
A Los Angeles Times investigation identified more than 20 women who claim Sutton mistreated them during his medical care. Their allegations date to 1989, his first year at Huntington, and include unwanted sexual advances, medical incompetence, the maiming of women's genitals and the preventable death of an infant. Sutton denied each allegation in an interview with The Times.
Top Huntington administrators were warned repeatedly about Sutton over the decades, according to interviews with current and former administrators and other hospital employees. One obstetrician at the hospital told The Times she complained to Huntington's chief medical officer and its compliance department on several occasions about what she saw as his poor clinical judgment and misogynistic remarks.
"No matter what concerns I had, they would continue to do nothing," said Dr. Shawanda Renee Obey.
Unease about Sutton was so widespread at Huntington that some nurses adopted a policy of misleading him about the progress of a woman's labor to keep him out of the delivery room for as long as possible, according to interviews with more than half a dozen current and former nurses.
Hospital administrators continued backing Sutton, even allowing him for several years to lead internal investigations of other obstetricians. After The Times reported in October that he was facing a fifth accusation of sexual impropriety in court or by the medical board, the hospital announced he would have a chaperone when treating patients.
In early November, the newspaper presented Huntington with a detailed list of questions for this story.
A hospital spokeswoman subsequently said that Sutton was no longer working there, "effective immediately." In an interview last month, Sutton said the hospital asked him to take a leave of absence or face suspension and he agreed to the leave.
Sutton said he was a good doctor and that the patients who complained represented only a tiny fraction of the thousands of women he cared for during his career. He maintained that the hospital never took any disciplinary action against him until this fall. He also noted that he had prevailed in the only two malpractice cases in his career that went to trial.
"I agree my record looked kind of crappy, and I wish it wasn't, but that doesn't mean I'm any risk to patients at all or that patients don't want to keep seeing me," Sutton said.
Dr. Lori Morgan, Huntington's
