Opinion ID: 159841
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Scheduling Dispute

Text: 11 In November, 1993, Dr. Diaz, who was the acting Anesthesia Department Chairman, called a Department meeting to discuss the scheduling of ob/gyn anesthesia. At that time, there was apparently only one open slot in the labor and delivery rotation and Drs. Diaz, Diehl, and Kaminsky were all seeking increased labor and delivery shifts. The Department members concluded that the plaintiffs would be scheduled for some labor and delivery shifts. 12 In December, 1993, the Department members met again to discuss whether the plaintiffs should be given new slots so that everyone would work equally on the labor and delivery schedule, or whether they would be given one slot to share among the three of them. The Department members apparently decided that the ob/gyn anesthesiologists currently filling the slots would meet separately to discuss the issue. It is unclear whether that meeting ever took place. The plaintiffs continued to work to some extent in labor and delivery, but there was no definite resolution of the scheduling issue. 13 The individual defendants' hesitations about granting plaintiffs' requests to return to the labor and delivery rotation apparently stemmed from the following: concern over the plaintiffs' absence from ob/gyn anesthesia, possible disruption of the smoothly running ob/gyn anesthesia schedule, and a decrease in the individual defendants' own total number of shifts with ob/gyn patients. At around this time, individual defendant Dr. Matthews wrote the following in his journal: 14 Three people who had all left OB in the past now are asking to come back on. There is one slot open, and another fellow in the OR wants to do more OB. The OR people what [sic] us to equally divide the shifts, but those of us who never left don't want that. In addition some of the OB's don't want one of them to come back. Since he quit doing OB when I cam [sic] 10 years ago, I wonder how good his memory is, but I think we'll have to let him work some shifts and let him remember why he gladly left a decade ago. We have some problems in the department. About half of the people are easy to get along with and all the surgeons will work with them. The others have personality quirks or are slow, and some surgeons request not to have them. 15 Shortly thereafter, Dr. Matthews sent Dr. Farley a letter, informing him that a proposed contract being considered with Cottonwood Ob/Gyn would impact the monthly anesthesia schedule. At around the same time, Dr. Abele circulated an unauthorized informal poll to the Obstetrics Department at Cottonwood Hospital, asking OB practitioners to rate anesthesiologists, including Drs. Diaz, Diehl, and Kaminsky. 16 Dr. Ron Larkin, the managing partner of Cottonwood Ob/Gyn, testified that he had concerns about the addition of the plaintiffs to the labor and delivery schedule based on prior experiences with all three plaintiffs. Dr. Larkin stated that he did not want them taking care of our patients because of those concerns. On February 4, 1994, the physicians at Cottonwood Ob/Gyn requested that another anesthesiologist be scheduled for their patients whenever Plaintiff Dr. Kaminsky was on call. 17