VA Paid $11K Bonus to Surgeon Who Left Op Room Before End of Surgery

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paid an $11,189 performance pay bonus to a surgeon who left the operating room before a surgery was completed, leaving residents to continue the procedure without him, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Friday.

The “[s]urgeon who was supervising residents left the operating room and medical center before the surgery was completed, allowing residents to continue the surgery without supervision until another surgeon was found to supervise the residents,” said the report.” The surgeon was suspended without pay for 14 calendar days.”

Despite this particular performance, the VA still gave the surgeon an extra $11,189 in pay.

This surgeon was not the only doctor the VA gave a performance pay bonus after they had engaged in poor performance.

–The VA paid a $7,500 performance pay bonus to a doctor who was reprimanded after refusing to see assigned patients in an emergency room because he or she (GAO does not specify the gender of the doctor) believed the patients had not been triaged appropriately by the emergency department nurse. The report says the physician was reprimanded, but nonetheless received the extra performance pay.

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