Officials at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles fired a surgeon following a two-year investigation into charges he regularly gawked at the genitalia of sedated patients, reported the Los Angeles Times.
His discharge notice obtained by the Times noted that Dr. Louis Kwong would look under the sheets at the sexual organs of Black men and would talk openly about the “genitals of the day.”
The investigation also found that Kwong failed to divulge that he received compensation from a company for using their medical devices, KTLA reported.
Kwong allegedly took $700,000 from the company but never reported the conflict of interest to the county.
The Daily Breeze previously reported last month that Kwong no longer worked at the hospital, but it was unclear whether he resigned or was fired.
The hospital’s chief medical officer Griselda Gutierrez informed her staff of Kwong’s status but declined to go into details, according to some in attendance at the meeting.
However, in her discharge notice, Gutierrez wrote “Your inappropriate, disparaging comments and actions were offensive, and created an uncomfortable, hostile, and demoralizing work environment for others.”
Dr. Jennifer Hsu, Dr. Haleh Badkoobehi and Dr. Madonna Fernandez-Frackelton are all suing Los Angeles County, accusing it of ignoring their complaints about Kwong.
Kwong continues to deny the charges through his attorney.
“Dr. Kwong disagrees with the County’s decision to terminate his employment and denies the manufactured allegations against him,” attorney Michelle Finkel Ferber wrote in an email to The Times. “Dr. Kwong looks forward to defeating these sensationalized claims through the appeals process, not in the press.”
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