A top surgeon named in sex discrimination and patient care complaints at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta is stepping down from the health system’s board of directors and as president of medical staff.
Dr. Ian Reight said he needed to focus on his clinical practice and his family, and would no longer serve as president of the medical executive committee, he announced in a Monday email to his colleagues obtained by the Bangor Daily News. The role puts him on the MaineGeneral board of directors.
Because he is resigning his position as president of medical staff, it means he will no longer sit on MaineGeneral’s board, confirmed Joy McKenna, a system spokesperson.
Reight’s announcement came the week after a BDN investigation revealed that he moved up in the hospital despite being the subject of at least five complaints in about a year, which outraged current and former hospital employees.
“This is the first step. Let’s get him off the board and out of this leadership position because he wasn’t even elected to it,” said a staff member who declined to be named to protect her job. She said staff had created an online petition, asking for his removal from leadership roles.
The Nov. 15 BDN investigation showed how medical providers alerted higher-ups in 2020 and 2021 — human resources staff, the medical director for surgery, the hospital’s chief executive officer, the chief medical officers for the hospital and the health system, and at least four health system board members — about Reight treating women in demeaning ways and being lax in his medical duties, such as by not responding when nurses called him about patients.
One female surgeon, for example, told human resources in July 2020 he had made an inappropriate comment about the breasts of a female patient, excluded the female surgeons when he held meetings in the men’s locker room, and left office staff in tears due to his “condescending and abusive communication style,” she wrote.
A sixth person, the former surgical medical director, Dr. Carlo Gammaitoni, said he was demoted after he brought forward others’ complaints to administrators. Gammaitoni filed a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission in December 2021, saying he had been retaliated against for being a whistleblower. The commission, which enforces Maine’s anti-discrimination laws, said in September that Gammaitoni and the hospital had finalized a settlement agreement.
The head of the hospital, Chuck Hays, declined to comment on personnel matters. But in the human rights commission’s public records, a hospital lawyer placed the blame not on Reight but on Gammaitoni, saying he didn’t do enough to address complaints.
The roles of vice president and president of medical staff are usually elected. But Reight “assumed” the role of vice president, Hays said, after the doctor who had been elected to the position left the hospital at the end of the summer of 2020. Reight had previously run for the position and lost.
After two years, the vice president automatically advances to president of medical staff, which Reight did this year.
In general the leadership role involves communicating the needs of patients and staff to more senior administrators and the health system board.
Dr. Amy Rico will move from vice president to president of medical staff, McKenna said. The executive committee will meet to independently appoint the new vice president of medical staff.
Some staff expressed concern about Reight remaining on the board because he would have helped to choose the next head of the hospital.
Hays, who is president and CEO of MaineGeneral Health and MaineGeneral Medical Center, is retiring at the end of his contract in December 2023. The board has hired a national search firm and has begun the planning process for finding his replacement, McKenna said.
“I think it would obviously have been preferable for [Reight] to address the issues that were brought up and to take ownership of it, but if he’s not willing to do that the next best thing is to step down from these positions, so hopeful someone with a clearer vision of how to correctly run the hospital will be the one to take that role,” said Richard Morand, a retired general surgeon who left MaineGeneral Medical Center in 2014.
Reight did not immediately respond to a phone call. His statement to staff reads:
“This has been a difficult week for me. There were several allegations made against me and I want you to know that this is not who I am as a person or as a physician. Those of you who know me well understand, and for those who don’t, please look to my dedication to the patients I have taken care of as a surgeon. The President of the Medical Executive Committee and Medical Executive Committee as a whole should be focused on the quality of care delivered at MaineGeneral Medical Center, and should not be distracted from that purpose as a result of these allegations. I also need to focus on my clinical practice and my family. For these reasons, [I] have decided to step down from my position on the Medical Executive Committee. I will continue to serve the community and our organization as I always have and urge all of us not to let the focus of our efforts stray from our purpose of delivering excellent care to our patients and the community. I hope in time you will understand the full story, but this is not the time or the venue for that.”
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