Copley Hospital doctor’s firing sparks backlash

Gannon “was wrongfully terminated for voicing his concerns about an unsatisfactory and dangerous health records system and for reporting unprofessional conduct by a colleague,” said the lawsuit, which is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and for Gannon to be reinstated.

Emily McKenna, Copley’s executive director of development, marketing and community relations, declined to comment on Gannon’s firing or the reaction to it, saying it was a personnel matter.

“As a hospital, we do take seriously the responsibility to protect the right to privacy for our patients, providers, and all of our employees,” McKenna said.

‘Shock and dismay’

In four letters sent to hospital leadership obtained by VTDigger, three current employees and one former staff member protested Gannon’s termination.

One undated letter, written by Roberta Pitkin, a Copley emergency department nurse, expressed “disappointment and outrage” at the hospital’s leadership over the decision.

“The lack of transparency with which you run our community hospital is abhorrent,” she wrote in the letter, which was sent to Joseph Woodin, Copley’s president and CEO, and Donald Dupuis, the hospital’s chief medical officer. “The patterns of behavior you exhibit have created an environment of distrust and speculation.”

Pitkin, who represents the emergency department for the local nurses’ union, said in an email that she hopes that Copley “will recognize the importance of practicing with honesty and integrity to nurture our working community in order to preserve what we have.”

Another letter, from emergency department nurse Joanna Branch and dated Nov. 16, expressed “shock and dismay” about the decision.

Branch said in an interview that she was concerned that more medical providers would leave due to a “change of the sense of security that the remaining providers have — not just in the emergency department but the whole hospital.”

John Kaeding, a former physician who said he was the director of the emergency department from 1977 until 2013 and helped hire Gannon as his replacement, wrote in a letter that he believed the decision was not “in the best interest of the community or the hospital.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Kaeding, who is now retired, said in an interview. “I was very surprised.”

Hannah Waite, an attorney at Burlington-based law firm Sheehey, Furlong & Behm, who is representing Gannon, declined to comment on the lawsuit or the firing.

Stepping down

Nancy Banks, the chair of Copley Hospital’s board of trustees at the time of Gannon’s termination, said in an interview that board members had heard from people upset about the termination and discussed it at the time. But the decision was fully in the purview of Woodin, the hospital’s president and CEO, not the board, Banks said.

“The board heard concerns, the board met, and the board understood that this was the CEO’s job, and there was no role for the board in the decision,” Banks said.

Banks’ three-year term on the board ended at the end of January, and she decided not to seek another term, she said.

Asked whether Gannon’s firing played a role in her decision not to seek another term, Banks said, “I would just say that it was one of several items that contributed.”

Earlier this year, Martin Linseisen, a physician in the emergency department, and Courtney Olmsted, a general surgeon and then-president of the medical staff, tendered their resignations.

Both Linseisen and Olmsted declined to comment.

Friction with leadership

Gannon’s lawsuit, filed March 6 in Vermont Superior Court, paints a picture of friction between him and the hospital’s administration.

When the hospital was considering adopting a new records system in 2020, according to the lawsuit, Gannon, then the head of the emergency department, tested it and found it “could cause issues such as delayed or missed orders, which could in turn affect patient safety and the quality of patient care.”

Hospital leadership ultimately decided to go ahead with the new software. According to the lawsuit, “numerous safety events relating to the new (system) have been submitted to the quality department since its implementation.”

The suit alleges that leadership became increasingly antagonistic toward Gannon. Gannon had been the director of the emergency department from 2013 to March 2023, according to the lawsuit, when he stepped down under pressure from leadership. Following that, administrators hired a new doctor, Anne O’Connor, to replace him.

Gannon began to complain to leadership about O’Connor’s performance, according to the lawsuit. Last summer, Gannon raised concerns that her “inability to get her notes completed on time was a significant patient safety issue because it limited the ability of providers to review historical and physical exam information should a patient return to the ED with worsening conditions,” the complaint said.

In October, the suit alleges, O’Connor sent Gannon an email that “defamed and threatened him.” The exact content of the email is not repeated in the complaint and it’s unclear exactly what it said.

Gannon informed Olmsted, then the president of the medical staff, about the email, and made a formal complaint to the hospital’s human resources department, the lawsuit says.

The next month Woodin, the president and CEO, fired Gannon, according to the suit. The termination, the suit alleges, was “without cause.”

This story, by Peter D’Auria, was first published by VTDigger on March 14.