Nurse Fired to Appease Anesthesiologist

Register Today!
  1. by Nov 30, '11
    An Arkansas surgery center has been cleared of wrongdoing after hiring and quickly firing a nurse whom a physician it was trying to recruit disliked.

    Nikki Wood, RN, was terminated even before her first day on the job at Outpatient Surgery Center in Mountain Home, Ark., after anesthesiologist Hicham Merheb, MD - whom the center was seeking to hire - refused to join a staff that included her. He allegedly harbored ill feelings toward Ms. Wood after she'd testified against him in a sexual harassment investigation when the two had previously worked together at a local medical center. Ms. Wood had characterized their relationship there as "like oil and water."
    http://www.outpatientsurgery.net/new...esthesiologist

    Court records
    http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=In FDCO 20111128325.xml&docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&SizeDisp=7
    Read Online


    Print and share with friends and family.
    Compliments of allnurses.com.
    http://allnurses.com/showthread.php?t=647659

    by Anxious Patient Nov 30, '11 3:19 pm
    ©2013 allnurses.com INC. All Rights Reserved.
    lindarn likes this.
  2. 5,864 Views
    Click Tags to Find Similar Topics

  3. 14 Comments so far...

  4. Dec 1, '11 by
    Footnotes

     1. Ultimately, Dr. Merhab elected not to join OSC, but this fact does not affect Plaintiff's case.
    lindarn likes this.
  5. Dec 1, '11 by
    I always roll my eyes when a fellow nurse says an MD cannot have an RN fired if the RN did nothing wrong.
    I've seen it happen first hand and it's not pretty.
    Not_A_Hat_Person, elkpark, Esme12, and 5 others like this.
  6. Dec 1, '11 by
    Doesn't surprise me they would choose the doctor over her. It is sad that they would choose a doctor that sexually harassed staff over a fellow staff member. IT is sending a disrespectful message to its fellow employees and turning a blind eye toward potentially expensive hiring decision. If he follows suit and proceeds to harass new employees at this center, they may file suit against him and the center for allowing it to happen. This could turn into a very expensive proposition, plus look at all the negative attention this incident has caused and it will probably affect staff recruit and patients alike. It allows him to get revenge on her for speaking up and minimized the harassment that took place. But does it really surprise me, sadly no!
    Purple_Scrubs, momology, Not_A_Hat_Person, and 7 others like this.
  7. Dec 1, '11 by
    What is sad about this case is that it is not surprising at all. The nurse really is better off not working there though. Hopefully their decision to take on someone who was accused of sexual harassment will eventually come back to bite them, while the nurse ends up finding a much better job than that one would have been.
    Esme12, elprup, CarribRN, and 4 others like this.
  8. Dec 1, '11 by
    I do think it's awesome that he ended up not working there anyway. So hopefully the facility will have to pay her some money and they won't have even accomplished their goal.
    momology, elprup, Lovely_RN, and 8 others like this.
  9. Dec 2, '11 by
    Not to be overly cynical here, but the only thing that surprises me is that anyone is surprised by this.
    kids, elkpark, imintrouble, and 4 others like this.
  10. Guide
    Dec 2, '11 by
    Quote from wooh
    I do think it's awesome that he ended up not working there anyway. So hopefully the facility will have to pay her some money and they won't have even accomplished their goal.
    Why would the center pay her any money? The RN lost the case. The surgical center won.
    kalevra likes this.
  11. Dec 2, '11 by
    Quote from lockheart678
    What is sad about this case is that it is not surprising at all. The nurse really is better off not working there though. Hopefully their decision to take on someone who was accused of sexual harassment will eventually come back to bite them, while the nurse ends up finding a much better job than that one would have been.
    What was it back in the old days? TFV "Transfer, Float, (sent on) Vacation"

    Tick off a doctor and the offending nurse was either transferred off the floor/unit, or floated around until either she got the hint and quit, or sent of vacation regardless of if she wanted to go or not.

    All of this went on until things cooled down and the doctor could stand the sight of the offending nurse again. Sometimes that never happened so there you are.

    What could cause such an out burst of furore? Anything from refusing to play "nurse" to his "doctor" such as telling a doc to keep his hands to himself. Or, speaking up to contravene a doctor's order when it clearly could cause a patient harm. Oh there was no end of ways a nurse could run afoul of "da law"
    Esme12, imintrouble, and kalevra like this.
  12. Dec 3, '11 by
    The facility prioritized who was most important and they chose the MD. Can't have a lot of surgical procedures with out anesthesia. No surgery= No Money. Anesthesiologists take a lot of time to create where as RNs have shorter time in school. Those are the breaks.
    just_cause likes this.