May 16, 2016 An Open Letter to the Public My name is Dr. Patrick Sullivan, an anesthesiologist at Sharp Grossmont Hospital from June 19, 1994-Jan 15, 2016. I was Chief of the Anesthesia Department in 2008-2009 and Anesthesia Department representative to the Sharp Grossmont Women's Center and its Ob/Gyn Supervisory Committee for the past 19 years. I served in this capacity, because I spent more of my practice in the Women?s Center than any other anesthesiologist and probably spent more time there than any other individual, including administrators and Ob/Gyn physicians. I performed exactly 28,603 anesthetics at Grossmont Hospital, approximately 20,000 of them in the Women?s Center. I was privileged and honored that 20,000 or so mainly East County women put their faith and trust in me during my time there, and it was a pleasure to be a part of their lives and of some of the most precious moments of their lives. I got to know their families and developed relationships with many of them that are still ongoing. I have been specially requested to provide anesthesia for other doctors, hospital staff and their families literally hundreds of times. I spent over 2 decades of my life dedicating myself to the Women?s Center, introducing improvements, promoting quality of care and patient safety to the best of my ability, volunteering my time attending meetings and troubleshooting and resolving Women?s Center issues for the Anesthesia Department. I regularly communicated with the OB Anesthesiology Medical Directors and Chiefs of Anesthesia at Sharp Mary Birch and Sharp Chula Vista to coordinate Anesthesia policies and procedures. I sat on the selection committee interviewing candidates for the last 3 vacancies in the Sharp Grossmont Women's Center Director position and for 5 vacancies in the Manager position. Because of my extreme investment and involvement in the Women's Center, I can no longer stay silent about what is going on there. In my opinion, Sharp Healthcare and Sharp Grossmont Hospital have severely violated and betrayed the public trust of East County women and the East County community in general. The story so far has been focused on Dr. Adam Dorin, who has been accused of ?stealing anesthesia drugs?, mainly based on video clips of him putting drugs in the front pocket of his shirt inside an operating room. While the topics of narcotic abuse and healthcare employees taking drugs are currently riding a wave of national publicity making it easy to assume that anyone accused is guilty, I do not believe he is guilty of a drug diversion in any way whatsoever. I will explain below. Much more importantly, this diverts attention from the more important story, which is that the videos never should have been taken. In an extreme betrayal of trust, Sharp placed secret, hidden cameras in the WC operating rooms recording thousands of clips that we now know contain images of patients. According to Sharp, ?There are 6,966 images contained within the multitude of images of women undergoing operations of a very personal, private nature, unconscious and in states of In addition to these videos, there were 6 months more video clips (extrapolating that would be 14,000 more video clips) taken that supposedly "were not retained by Sharp Grossmont Hospital.? It is public knowledge that during an Ob/Gyn procedure, women are often put in the lithotomy (also known as the legs spread apart) position while staff place prep sponges, catheters and instruments inside their genitalia. One can only imagine what might be on these video clips. To add insult to injury, multiple sources reported that the video clips were reviewed by a MALE Sharp security employee. East County women and national women?s groups should be fuming mad about this. When land several of the 0b/Gyn physicians and anesthesiologists discovered the existence of these cameras in March of 2013, we passionately complained to the Women?s Center Director and implored her to remove the cameras, but she refused. So instead, anesthesiologists protected patients by putting a piece of tape over the tiny cameras during surgeries until eventually one day they disappeared. Regarding Dr. Dorin, for the entire duration of Doctor Adam Dorin's ten year tenure as an anesthesiologist with Sharp, let me say unequivocally that he was an exceptionally good and highly valuable anesthesiologist on my team, with no adverse patient care issues of any kind, and never any indication of drug use, theft or diversion. The Women?s Center Director had been told repeatedly by me and others that the ?missing Propofol" could be explained by the fact that many anesthesiologists were taking Propofol from one area of the hospital to another, because there was a yearlong local and national shortage of Propofol, and Sharp could not procure enough Propofol to put patients to sleep in all areas of the hospital. There were literally times when patients were on the operating table with the surgeon ready and there was no Propofol to put them to sleep. It?s that simple. I witnessed many anesthesiologists coming from other operating rooms to get Propofol from the Women?s Center ORs because good patient care demanded it, and oftentimes the Women?s Center ORs were its only repository in the hospital. Alternative agents to Propofol do exist but have signi?cant side effects. Over the years, I firmly believe that many physicians were seen on film taking meds and supplies, as well as nurses and ancillary staff, for use in a neighboring OR or other patient care area. In addition, Dr. Dorin was a well known whistleblower, speaking out publicly about patient safety issues. Sharp's refusal (backed up by a judge) to turn over all video clips is a miscarriage ofjustice. All of the clips need to be turned over. Women who were viewed by the Sharp security employee and/or others have a right to see them in case they are entitled to damages. Dr. Dorin?s attorney has a right to see them to clear Dr. Dorin. find it odd that so many anesthesiologists took drugs out of the Women?s Center carts for patient use, but the only video clips Sharp will turn over are the ones showing the whistleblower taking drugs. East County women and the Grossmont Healthcare District Board should be outraged over this and should demand the following: 1. The immediate resignation of the Women?s Center Director, under whose supervision all of this occurred. 2. A subpoena for a 3rd party forensic computer investigator to search all of Sharp?s servers (including deleted files) for evidence of the missing 6 months of video clips. 3. An appeal of the court order denying the request that all 6,966 video clips be turned over to Dr. Dorin?s attorney. OR the subpoena could be modified to turn the video clips over to a lone female 3rd party agreed to by both attorneys. The tapes should be reviewed for any exculpatory evidence regarding Dr. Dorin. 4. An investigation by state and federal agencies. 5. Termination of the lease agreement between Sharp Healthcare and the Grossmont Healthcare District Board based on a breach of section 14.16 which states: "Tenant shall operate the Hospital according to the best interests of the public health of the communities served by the La ndlord.? 6. A class action lawsuit brought by women of East County who were damaged by this. Sharp?s hypocrisy is astounding. Sharp is concerned about 14 videos they took that were released to an attorney, because of concern that they violated patient privacy. Why aren?t they concerned about the other multiple hundreds or thousands of clips that were reviewed by the Sharp security employee? Although well intended, Sharp took way, way too much liberty with this secret videotaping. Many innocent nurses and physicians working in the Women?s Center felt that their privacy was violated as well. Always at your service MAM Patrick G. Sullivan, M.D.