Battle continues between UI, radiologist

A University of Iowa radiologist's dispute with UI Hospitals and Clinics has escalated, with his lawyer accusing hospital officials of trying to cover up defective medical care and obstruct an investigation by the Iowa Board of Medicine.

In a letter to Robert Porter, university associate general counsel, Rockne Cole, an Iowa City attorney representing Dr. Malik Juweid, writes that his client has attempted to expose that doctors are ordering excessive medical imaging for patients.

“Several UIHC medical doctors apparently have a practice of ordering PET/CT scans for surveillance of healthy patients,” Cole said in his letter. “Dr. Juweid has attempted to expose this dangerous practice; however, at each stage, the university has completely ignored his request for a thorough investigation into this practice.”

University officials denied the allegations in a statement earlier this month.

“Patient safety in every aspect of our services, including medical imaging, has always been, and continues to be, a top priority,” spokesman Tom Moore said. “Related to medical imaging practices, we follow the American College of Radiology appropriateness criteria for every radiologic exam.”

Moore said the university has not been notified of any formal Board of Medicine investigation.

Porter, meanwhile, said Juweid violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rules when he sent the personal history information of a patient in an email to a number of university officials, plus David Miles, chairman of the Iowa Board of Regents, and U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin.

Juweid, 49, has been locked in a bitter dispute with his superiors. The university placed him on paid administrative leave from his $241,000-a-year job in January and banned him from visiting the campus without escort, claiming that he had threatened officials and hospital employees.

In a lawsuit filed this month claiming officials were trying to silence him from reporting questionable medical practices, Juweid calls those claims “completely false.”

He also accused them of racial discrimination, defamation and retaliation. He said hospital officials had defamed him by accusing him of being an “academic terrorist” and had made it impossible for him to obtain employment at other U.S. hospitals by falsely portraying him as threatening or violent.