INVESTIGATIONS

Froedtert South hires doctor accused of performing unnecessary surgery despite state investigation

Mark Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It is not every surgeon who gets welcomed to his new hospital with a party — especially when he’s under investigation by state licensing authorities.

Froedtert South, which has hospitals in Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie and shares an affiliation with Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, has hired cardiothoracic surgeon Christopher D. Stone, and threw a party in his honor in February.

Documents obtained from the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services indicate a license investigation against Stone is “currently pending.” Department officials refused to discuss the nature of the case. The state opened its investigation of Stone on May 15, 2018 — nine months before the Froedtert South party celebrating his hiring.

Stone is the same doctor who was hired by the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2012, even though college leaders knew he had been accused of performing unnecessary surgery at another hospital, which has not been identified.

Christopher Stone

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation, published in February 2018, found Stone was kept on staff for three years, even as several colleagues emailed the dean and other Medical College leaders, raising alarms about Stone’s treatment of patients.

RELATED: Medical College of Wisconsin knew doctor was accused of performing unnecessary surgery

Three months after Stone’s departure in August 2015, the allegations against him surfaced in a wide-ranging federal lawsuit brought by heart surgeon Robert Love. In the lawsuit, Love claims his former employers, Froedtert and the Medical College, retaliated against him when he warned them about Stone and brought forward other alleged examples of “substandard care.”

Froedtert South and Froedtert Hospital both declined to comment on Stone’s recent hiring.

Stone and his lawyer, Paul Erickson, did not respond to written questions, but Erickson sent an email stating “there is no substance to the claims of ‘the colleagues’ ” and adding, “Dr. Stone’s record is impeccable and you have absolutely nothing to indicate otherwise.”

Lawsuit cites warnings about doctor

In August, Froedtert settled Love’s lawsuit, though the terms were not disclosed. Love is continuing to sue the Medical College, which has called his allegations “demonstrably false and unfounded.”

RELATED: Froedtert dropped from former staff doctor's lawsuit; new allegations against Medical College

Love’s lawsuit refers to several warnings he sent about Stone, including a March 2013 letter to the college’s general counsel, saying, the “MCW faculty of Vascular and CT Surgery have knowledge of multiple cases that (Stone) has performed and subsequently sent here for complications or further surgery where the surgery was either not indicated, was clearly out of the bounds of clearly established practice, or where those practices have resulted in direct harm to the patient.”

In the same letter, Love said Stone’s actions “represent a clear and present danger” to the Medical College.

Stone’s hiring by Froedtert South represents a homecoming of sorts for the doctor, who once worked at Kenosha Medical Center. The medical center was then part of United Hospital System which has since been renamed Froedtert South.

In an interview last year with the Journal Sentinel, Richard Schmidt, now president and chief executive officer at Froedtert South, praised Stone as “an excellent cardiac surgeon,” adding, “I would easily let him operate on my family members or me.”

Although Froedtert Hospital denied employing Stone when the allegations against him surfaced, Froedtert and the Medical College are partners. Also, one of Stone’s patients, Allen Hutchinson, told the Journal Sentinel the doctor wore a white coat stitched with the Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin logo during appointments

Froedtert and Froedtert South are also affiliated, a move that involved the name change from United Hospital System to Froedtert South, and now allows Froedtert South to offer health care “under the external brand name Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin health network.”

A joint news release in 2017 said the arrangement also allowed Froedtert South “to adopt Froedtert & (Medical College of Wisconsin) care quality protocols and best practices.”

Asked how hiring Stone demonstrated these “quality controls and best practices,” Froedtert and Froedtert South both declined to answer.

Froedtert director of media relations Stephen Schooff said Froedtert South has its own medical group leadership and medical staff and “makes independent decisions on individual employee hires.”

J. Thomas Duncan III, vice president and chief operating officer of Froedtert South, said the hospital would not comment, “in light of litigation involving Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin.”

'Moral compass simply not active'

According to documents from Love’s lawsuit, the Medical College had a doctor at UC Irvine Health in California review one of Stone’s alleged unnecessary surgeries in 2012. The California doctor sent a draft report expressing doubts that the patient’s procedure had been necessary but concluding “There is not enough information in the records to make a definitive determination that the surgeries were (warranted).”

The allegations against Stone did not end with that case. In early 2014, several of Stone’s colleague’s complained about the doctor’s treatment of two other patients.

According to court papers, Gary R. Seabrook, a professor at the Medical College, told the college’s general counsel and several doctors that Stone had performed “a non-standard operation and then failed to diagnose or treat a serious surgical complication” — for six weeks.

“Do we not have an obligation to protect patients from ongoing exposure to this pattern of care?” Seabrook asked.

His question drew this reply from Douglas B. Evans, chairman of the department of surgery:

“Moral compass simply not active -- money and politics trumping patient care -- nothing more disappointing. I have done all possible and was ordered to stand down yesterday.”

The discussion of money and patient care echoed an email sent by Joseph E. Kerschner, dean of the Medical College on Aug. 31, 2012 — the day before Stone started work at the Medical College.

“We believe that the case brought forward suggests that Dr. Stone performed unnecessary surgery,” Kerschner wrote summarizing an earlier meeting in which Medical College staff discussed an allegation against Stone.

However, Kerschner went on to add, “There is a financial risk to the enterprise given the large number of cases that Dr. Stone currently does — we discussed the importance of ‘doing the right thing’ — but we need to understand the financial implications of this.”

He added that quickly terminating Stone posed “a reputational risk to MCW.” Whatever the reason, the Medical College kept Stone on staff and allowed him to perform surgery until his last day, Aug. 31, 2015.