Jonathan Ellis, USA TODAY
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — More than a dozen physicians representing two hospitals have been named as defendants in federal lawsuits that allege they acted in bad faith by allowing a spine surgeon to perform surgery at the hospitals.
The doctors in question served on the committees that approved surgical privileges at Avera Sacred Heart and Lewis & Clark Specialty Hospital, both in Yankton, according to the lawsuits. The doctors are accused of extending Dr. Allen Sossan privileges to perform complex spine surgeries, despite knowing that Sossan had a history of performing unnecessary surgeries and unprofessional conduct. Both Avera Sacred Heart and Lewis & Clark also are defendants.
The two federal cases are in addition to almost three dozen other lawsuits brought in state court by Sossan’s former patients or loved ones of patients who died after undergoing surgery. In addition to those, Sossan settled other cases, including one in November. And in late 2013, a jury in Yankton awarded the family of a deceased woman $933,835 after determining that Sossan performed unnecessary surgeries on her.
The lawsuits have led to the release of dozens of documents that typically are not public. They include memos and board meeting minutes of hospitals and medical staffs that are kept secret under medical peer review rules.
The new federal lawsuits are unusual for South Dakota because they include the doctors who served on the committees that granted Sossan privileges to perform surgeries at the hospitals. One of those physicians is Dr. Mary Milroy, the president of the South Dakota State Medical Association, who was on Avera Sacred Heart’s Medical Executive Committee when the hospital gave Sossan privileges.
