Former Harbor-UCLA doctor failed to disclose more than $700K in industry payments
The Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is pictured. The hospital’s former chief of orthopedics, Louis Kwong – who staff said fostered a racist and sexist culture – was found to have not disclosed thousands in payments from medical device companies. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
By Anna Dai-Liu
April 21, 2024 11:48 p.m.
Investigators found that Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s former chief of orthopedics Dr. Louis Kwong – who currently faces two sexual misconduct lawsuits against him – also failed to disclose more than $700,000 in payments from a medical device company.
Kwong, who received a formal notice of termination Feb. 27 from Chief Medical Officer Griselda Gutierrez, received thousands of dollars and private plane rides from joint replacement manufacturer Zimmer Biomet, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the notice, Gutierrez also claimed that Kwong hid his employment at the Lundquist Institute, a nonprofit research institution affiliated with UCLA, and that both the institute and Zimmer Biomet offered him financial incentives for referrals.
In addition, investigators were told by doctors that Kwong created an environment of racism and sexism at the hospital, as he and his colleagues would make anti-Black remarks about both residents and patients, as well as comment on female residents’ sexual preferences, according to the LA Times. Kwong – who has been at the center of complaints since 2013 – would also stare openly at anesthetized patients under the drapes to discuss the “genitals of the day,” staff said.
Concerns about Kwong’s conflict of interest arose as early as 2016, according to the LA Times. In 2018 alone, Kwong received 143 payments from drug and device companies totaling $131,466, according to ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs portal.
Per county policy, Kwong was placed on paid administrative leave from March 2022 until the investigations concluded recently. His 2023 compensation totaled $997,551 – one of the highest earnings among all county employees, according to the LA County Auditor-Controller.
[Related: Harbor-UCLA, former orthopedics chief part ways amid sexual misconduct allegations]
Though the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center – located in Torrance, California – is independently operated by the LA County Department of Health Services, many of its faculty hold joint appointments at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and have clinical duties at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
In October, orthopedic surgeons Drs. Haleh Badkoobehi and Jennifer Hsu, as well as former director of emergency medicine Dr. Madonna Fernandez-Frackelton, sued Harbor-UCLA – alleging instances of sexual misconduct on unconscious patients and that Kwong carried a gun on hospital premises. Similar allegations had been made by former medical student Dr. Melani Cargle in a June lawsuit.
The hospital has since been placed on probation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, and its director of graduate medical education, Dr. Darrell W. Harrington – who plaintiffs said had ignored complaints about Kwong – resigned in December.
[Related: Harbor-UCLA Medical Center director resigns amid doctor’s misconduct litigation]
Kwong appealed his firing March 20 to the county’s Civil Service Commission, according to the LA Times.
Harbor-UCLA did not respond in time to a request for comment.
