"Doctor gets $7m in gender bias suit; Settlement with Beth Israel one of largest" by Liz Kowalczyk
| Globe Staff, February 07, 2013
In a striking settlement of a high-profile case, a Harvard doctor who said she endured years of sexist treatment at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will collect $7 million — and will have the hospital’s pain clinic named in her honor.
Employment lawyers said the hospital’s settlement with Dr. Carol Warfield, its former chief of anesthesia, appears to be one of the largest for a gender discrimination case in Massachusetts. Ilene Sunshine, a lawyer who represents defendants in bias suits, said it seems “enormous,’’ though she pointed out that it is hard to compare because settlements usually remain confidential.
The agreement — in which the hospital and other defendants did not admit doing anything wrong — closes an embarrassing stretch in the Harvard teaching hospital’s illustrious history.
Warfield, who became chief of anesthesia in 2000, said Dr. Josef Fischer, former surgery chief, discriminated against her because she is a woman, openly ignoring her in meetings and lobbying for her removal from her job. When she complained to Paul Levy, then chief executive, she alleged, both men retaliated against her and forced her out.
Warfield, 61, who still sees patients part time in the pain clinic she helped start, spoke in an interview with the Globe....
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