A Vienna, Virginia man pressed record on his smartphone right before a routine colonoscopy in Reston, because he wanted to capture his doctor’s post procedure instructions while he was still groggy.
What he got was not a reminder about diet, warning signs, or follow up care. When he tapped play on the drive home, he heard that the phone had kept rolling through the entire exam, picking up a running commentary from the room as he drifted under anesthesia.
In court papers, he was identified only as “D.B.” His lawsuit said the insults started “as soon as he drifted off to sleep,” and the recording became the centerpiece of a defamation and malpractice case that would end with a Fairfax County jury award of $500,000.
The anesthesiologist on the recording, Tiffany M. Ingham, was heard telling the sedated patient, “I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit.”
When a rash came up in the conversation, she warned an assistant about touching it, saying she might get “some syphilis on your arm or something,” then added, “It’s probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you’ll be all right.”
When a needle and queasiness were mentioned, the recording captured her saying, “Well, why are you looking then, retard?”
The gastroenterologist performing the colonoscopy was Soloman Shah. The Washington Post reported that court documents said Shah was recorded saying, “As long as it’s not Ebola, you’re okay,” during the rash discussion.
The complaint also described doctors talking about how to handle the patient afterward, including a plan to mislead him about whether the doctor had spoken to him post procedure.
One line from the reporting that stuck was the “fake page” idea. The Post reported that the complaint said Ingham suggested an urgent “fake page” so Shah could escape the conversation, adding, “I’ve done the fake page before.”
Then came the charting issue. The Post reported that the anesthesiologist said, “I’m going to mark ‘hemorrhoids’ even though we don’t see them and probably won’t,” and that the lawsuit described this as falsifying the record.
By the time the case reached a jury, the question was not whether the audio existed. It was how far the law would treat what happened in the room as defamation and malpractice when the patient was unconscious and the comments were not broadcast to the public.
A key legal fight was over whether the recording should be allowed at all. The Post reported that the doctors’ attorneys argued it was illegal, while the patient’s lawyers pointed to Virginia’s “one party consent” rule for recordings.
The jury’s breakdown, as reported by the Post, was $100,000 for defamation, split into $50,000 for the syphilis statement and $50,000 for the tuberculosis statement, plus $200,000 for medical malpractice and $200,000 in punitive damages.
A juror, Farid Khairzada, told the Washington Post, “there was not much defense, because everything was on tape.”
He also explained the thinking behind the money, telling the Post, “We finally came to a conclusion that we have to give him something, just to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Shah did not end up being the one writing the check from that verdict. The Post reported that he was dismissed from the case on the opening day of the trial.
Ingham, meanwhile, could not be reached for comment at the time, according to the Post, and her attorney did not return messages. The Post also reported that an employee said Ingham no longer worked at Aisthesis, the anesthesia practice tied to the case, and that licensing records indicated she had moved to Florida.
Aisthesis issued a public statement after the verdict. The Post quoted the practice saying, “We apologize to this patient and regret the distress and suffering that this most unfortunate incident caused.”
The Los Angeles Times separately reported the same statement and added that the practice said the anesthesiologist “is no longer with the practice.”
The patient’s life after the recording did not stay neatly inside the courtroom. The Los Angeles Times reported that he later saw a second gastroenterologist and another doctor who prescribed anti anxiety medication.
The story also triggered an uncomfortable question inside medicine itself, because this was not about a surgical mistake. It was about what clinicians say when a patient cannot respond, and whether they can ever be sure a sedated person has no awareness.
In testimony quoted by the Washington Post, Kathryn E. McGoldrick said these conversations “are not only offensive but frankly stupid, because we can never be certain that our patients are asleep and wouldn’t have recall.”
At the time of the 2015 coverage, the Post reported that “No actions are listed against either on the board’s Web site,” referring to disciplinary listings.
A year later, there were disciplinary updates.
A Virginia Board of Medicine newsletter listing disciplinary actions shows Tiffany M. Ingham receiving a reprimand on 5/11/16, with her license “subject to terms and conditions” based on “inappropriate statements made during a procedure while administering anesthesia to the patient.”
The same newsletter later lists a 7/21/16 entry stating “Compliance with the Board’s Order entered 5/11/16,” with “terms terminated” and her license “restored to full and unrestrictive status.”
Soloman Shah also faced a Board action, even though he had been dismissed from the civil trial. A Virginia Board of Medicine consent order states that, on or about April 18, 2013, while performing a colonoscopy on “Patient A,” Shah made “demeaning statements/inferences” about the patient’s “lack of manliness,” the nature of a “purported rash on the patient’s penis,” and the patient being “high maintenance.”
That consent order ends with the Board issuing Shah a “REPRIMAND.”
